Arreola sick with bronchitis, fight with Stiverne to be postponed

By Boxing News - 02/25/2013 - Comments

arreola34343By Allan Fox: Heavyweight Chris Arreola (35-2, 30 KO’s) is sick with bronchitis and his scheduled March 9th WBC heavyweight eliminator fight against Bermane Stiverne (22-1-1, 20 KO’s) will have to be postponed for five to six weeks, according to Dan Rafael.

The undercard fights will still go ahead as scheduled at The Hanger in Costa Mesa, California. This is the third time that the Arreola-Stiverne fight has been postponed, and it almost seems like the fight itself is doomed in some way.

Arreola got sick last weekend and he’s sick enough to be ready to go by March 9th. The winner of the Arreola vs. Stiverne fight will become the mandatory challenger for WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitachko.

However, with Vitali possibly retiring in 2013, the Arreola-Stiverne winner will be in the position to either have the WBC title given to them outside of the ring by the World Boxing Council or they could end up facing one of the top heavyweight contenders like #4 Tyson Fury or #3 WBC Johnathon Banks.

HBO will still televise the Arreola vs. Stiverne fight once Arreola has recovered from his illness, but hopefully this is the last postponement for this fight because it’s gone too long as it is.
Arreola should be able to get past Stiverne when the two fighters eventually fight at some point in the future. Stiverne has good power, but he can be out-boxed as we’ve seen in his fight against Charles Davis, and he can be hurt as well. He was stopped by Demetrice King in the 4th round in July 2007.

Arreola was badly beaten by Vitali in a 10th round stoppage in September 2009. Arreola also was surprisingly beaten by Tomasz Adamek in April 2010 by a 12 round majority decision. Since that loss, Arreola has fought exclusively weak opposition and he’s done well.

The following fights will still go ahead on March 9th:

Juan Carlos Salgado vs. Argenis Mendez
Javier Molina vs. Joseph Elegele
Oscar Molina vs. TBA



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