By Ian S Palmer
The vacant WBC Heavyweight Title will be on the line this Saturday, May 10 when Bermaine Stiverne takes on Chris Arreola in a rematch of their 2013 slugfest. The bout will be broadcast across the nation live by ESPN from Los Angeles’ USC Galen Center. Stiverne, who was born in Haiti, beat Los Angeles native Arreola by a 12-round unanimous decision in their brawl just over a year ago.
Arreola bounced back from that loss by stopping Seth Mitchell in the first round last September while Stiverne has been inactive for the last year. This means he could have some ring rust too work out once the bell rings. Stiverne enters the rematch with a 23-1-1 record with 20 Kos while Arreola is 36-3-1 with 31 Kos. As we can see by their resumes, both of these guys have above average power.
We saw some evidence of that in their first meeting when Arreola was dropped in the third round and also had his nose broken that night. Neither of these guys are spring chickens as Stiverne is 35 and Arreola’s now 33. However, they can still slug it out with the best of them. That’s good news for the fans since there’s a good chance they’re going to see another slugfest.
No matter who emerges victorious, boxing history’s going to be made Saturday night unless this fight ends in a draw. If Stiverne wins the fight he’s going to become the first ever champion from Haiti in any division. If Arreola’s hands are raised then he’ll remarkably become just the first American-Mexican to take home a world heavyweight crown. There’s a lot on the line here for both boxers and they realize it.
Of course, Arreola wants to avenge his loss to Stiverne and he knows he can’t come in out of shape if he plans on doing that. He’s never been one to take his conditioning seriously in the past hand has paid for it with his losses to Stiverne, Vitali Klitschko and Tomasz Adamek. Stiverne’s one and only loss was by a fourth-round Ko to Demetrice King in 2007. He also fought to a six-round draw with Charles Davis in 2009.
The key to this fight could be the boxers’ training camps. If Arreola has trained as hard as he said he has then he should be in top shape. He blames all of his career losses on himself as he says he wasn’t properly prepared for them. He managed to go 12 rounds with Stiverne last April when he wasn’t in the best shape so logic would predict that he shouldn’t have a problem doing it again if he’s in condition. But boxing doesn’t always subscribe to logic.
Arreola believes his career could come to an end if he loses this contest and his back is against the wall. He could be right since he’s getting on in years and this is his second shot at a world title, with the fist coming against Klitschko. It looks like he has more to lose here than Stiverne does.
Prediction
Arreola stands 6-foot-3 and has a 76-inch reach while Stiverne is 6-foot-2 with an 80-inch wingspan. Arreola needs to get inside of Stiverne’s reach advantage to hit and hurt him, but needs to be careful not to get caught while working his way inside. We can sit and analyze the fight, but let’s just sit back and enjoy it as we have two guys here who will likely end up going toe-to-toe until one of them drops. There’s a chance this fight goes the distance, but a stoppage is more likely. Either way, let’s go with Arreola to even up the series here.
