The Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA, will play host to a heavyweight title fight this Saturday, September 26th between Vitali Klitschko and Chris Arreola. The champ, Klitschko 37-2 (36), will be defending his WBC heavyweight strap against the undefeated contender, Arreola 27-0 (24).

This is a scheduled twelve round heavyweight championship match-up but I’ll go out on a limb here and say this one doesn’t go the distance, but more on that later.

Vitali is making the second defense of his WBC strap since regaining the belt from Samuel Peter almost a year ago and is coming into this fight as a massive favorite to retain his belt. The boxing odds makers at BetUS have Klitschko as a -600 favorite, while Arreola is going off at +450. Before we get into the bet you should make, let’s take a closer look at the fighters.

Vitali Klitschko

Vitali, the older brother of Wladimir (who holds the IBF & WBO belts), has proven himself to be a legitimate contender every time he steps in the ring over thirteen years of professional boxing.

His list of victories is a who’s who in the fight world. Ok, they aren’t names like Tyson and Foreman but that’s because the heavyweight boxing pool has dried up faster than a puddle in the Sahara. Still, hardcore boxing fans will appreciate his list of victims that includes Herbie Hide, Larry Donald, Samuel Peter and Juan Gomez.

Despite the lack of any real superstars in the Heavyweight division, Vitali has earned the right to be called a three world heavyweight champion. What makes him so good is that he just doesn’t have major flaws in his techniques. There isn’t anything really flashy about what he does. He won’t move around excessively, rather choosing to stand and counter rather than dancing away.

A stat that you should know about Vitali is in his thirty-seven victories, Klitschko has won all but one via knockout. The only two fights he lost were at the hands of Lennox Lewis and Chris Byrd, and neither were the result of a knockout or decision, rather referee stoppages due to injuries sustained during the fight.

Chris Arreola

The first thing we should note is that the upcoming fight with Klitschko will be the first time Arreola will face a top-tier opponent. The line on this kid is that he’s a hard hitting undefeated heavyweight that can bang but doesn’t have the best defense.

Arreola should have the home crowd advantage as he was born in Los Angeles and before we take too much away from this kid, he has defeated all that have stood before him. The heavy hander has beaten the likes of Chazz Witherspoon, Travis Walker and Jameel McCline before getting this shot at the heavyweight title.

The biggest knock is that his career has been filled with nobodies until recently. He is capable of pressuring, but he had never tried to pressure a highly skilled fighter like Vitali. Chris is used to throwing bombs and getting a fighter on his heals, but he’s never tried that against a fighter as big as Klitschko. Arreola has some upper body strengths and can punch from different angles, but he had never attempted that on a 6-foot-8 world class champion.