Long time heavyweight contender Chris Arreola said before his fight with Adam Kownacki in August that he might retire if he lost. Well, he came up on the wrong end of a unanimous decision. And there isn’t a chance that he’s walking away now.
What changed his mind? His performance.
Arreola, 39, threw 1,125 punches in the fight (to Kownacki’s 1,047), according to CompuBox. That’s a record for a heavyweight. More important, in spite of the result, he felt he gave a strong showing against one of the hottest big men in the world.
“It wasn’t disappointing because I felt like I put in a great performance,” Arreola said on The PBC Podcast. “I felt like I did my job that day. I did exactly what I came in there to do and what I said I was going to do. … I put in the work. The proof was in the pudding. It showed in the ring.
Retirement?
“Honestly,” he said, “I do feel like it’s out the window. I feel like my performance not only … brought me to a different position as a boxer but I also feel it was a blueprint to beat Kownacki (who lost in his next fight to Robert Helenius).
“I felt like I beat Kownacki that day. And I don’t think he recovered like I would’ve after a win.”
Perhaps even more impressive, Arreola delivered the record-setting number of punches even though he had a handicap: He said he injured his left hand in Round 4.
“Every time I threw with my left hand, I babied it,” he said. “I hurt it at the end of the fourth round. I fought around seven rounds with a messed up left hand. I messed up the ligaments and tendons in my left hand.”
Arreola (38-6-1, 33 KOs) has always been known as a solid, spirited boxer but not a disciplined one even though he has fought for a major heavyweight title three times, losing each time. That apparently has changed late in the game.
He has been working with a new trainer, Joe Goossen, who has helped him see the value of consistently hard work.
“In all honesty, no disrespect to my old trainer Henry Ramirez because we had a great run, but working with Joe is just night and day,” he said. “… Even when I was resting Joe was constantly in my ear, telling me how to do something, how to work, how to just be the best professional I could be in the ring and outside the ring and while I was training.
“… I feel my career was reinvigorated. I feel like I was just in a different zone.”
Arreola, a good amateur with a solid fundamental foundation and plenty of punching power, thinks about what could’ve been had he developed a better work ethic earlier in his career but he doesn’t dwell on it, saying more than once, “I should’ve, I could’ve, but I didn’t.”
Instead, he’s looking forward.
“I feel there’s still time to change a little bit of my future,” he said. “I’m not saying I will be a world champion [although] I still want to be world champion. I’m saying … people could look at me differently how I end my career instead of the middle part of my career.”