Arreola and Adamek ready to put on a show

With the event being called "Ring of Fire," heavyweights Cristobal Arreola and Tomasz Adamek are ready to burn the house down on April 24, when they headline a pretty substantial HBO Boxing After Dark card from Ontario, California.

One note: If the press release is correct (and it very well may not be), this show won't start until 11:15 ET, which would mean plenty of time for the Showtime Super Six double-header to air and finish. That show will start at 9pm ET, with Froch-Kessler leading off (and probably taped), and Ward-Green live in the second slot.

If that's not the case, then so be it, but that'd be pretty nice.

Arreola likes his chances, in large part due to his size advantage. "It’s a boxing fight, man. It’s a chess match. He’s gonna try to catch me, I’m gonna try to catch him. I’m gonna find some openings, just like he’s gonna find some openings. But I believe my punches are more effective than his. I’m a natural heavyweight. I became a heavyweight because of Coronas and burritos. That’s the truth. But I’ve been a heavyweight for 29 fights. That’s the way I see it."

And despite his joke about Coronas and burritos (which gets funnier every time), Arreola is at least giving lip service to coming in significantly lighter than he has for recent bouts.

"I wanna come in at 240. 240 is easy. That’s my target weight. That’s where I really do belong. Boxing any higher than that and I’m kicking myself in the ass. There is no excuse why I shouldn’t come in at that weight. Tomasz comes up from cruiserweight and he fights at around 225. And he’s a very agile guy. He’s gonna be on his toes a lot. So, I’m gonna have to try and keep up with him because I’m gonna have to chase him."

240 would be 23 pounds lighter than what Arreola weighed against Brian Minto in December, and 11 pounds less than he weighed when Vitali Klitschko took him to the woodshed back in September. It would be his lowest weight since he came in at 238 against Chazz Witherspoon in 2008, which was the last time he looked really good.

Adamek has a pretty good reason for taking the challenge from Arreola, too.

"It was all about the fans. Like I said before, I am fighting for the fans. Without fans there is no point in going into the ring. Having a guy like Chris Arreola, who goes forward and is relentless, and everybody knows me. I love to punch people in the mouth, there’s nothing wrong with this. I mean this guarantees a great fight, and this is a fight that HBO and the fans wanted for a long, long time. If I were to fight somebody boring there would be seven fans in the stands.  No point."

There aren't a whole lot of heavyweight fights that get put together with this sort of talk, these promises of action, and especially not many where you actually believe it will happen. Personally, I actually believe this could be a tremendous fight, and not just "good for heavyweights."

Arreola's trainer Henry Ramirez summed it up best: "This kind of a fight, there is no way this is going to be a boring fight."