Chris Arreola vs. Bermane Stiverne on April 27th in Ontario, California

By Boxing News - 03/15/2013 - Comments

arreola45By Eric Thomas: The WBC heavyweight eliminator bout between #1 WBC Chris Arreola (35-2, 30 KO’s) and #2 WBC Bermane Stiverne (22-1-1, 20 KO’s) will be taking place next month on April 27th at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, California.

This fight seems almost jinxed after having already been moved twice, you have to wonder if it’ll actually take place next month or not. Having the Arreola-Stiverne fight continually pushed into the future is making it easy for WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko to avoid making a decision about his career.

Hopefully, the World Boxing Council just selects one of them to be Vitali’s mandatory if we have another injury postponement because the process has been dragged out long enough.

Arreola, 32, is considered to be the favorite in this fight. He can punch, has a decent chin, and has faced far better opposition during his career than the 34-year-old Stiverne. Arreola isn’t quite as tall as his listed 6’3” height, and I’d be surprised if he’s any taller than the 6’2” Stiverne when they meet face to face for this fight, if they ever do.

Arreola has been taking it real easy since he was beaten by Tomasz Adamek three years ago in April 2010. You can’t blame that on Arreola because he’s not the one setting up his fights, but his promoter has pulled him away from fighting top fighters for the past three years and Arreola has done well.

You can’t really tell if Arreola has improved because his opposition has been so poor. It’s unfortunate that Arreola has lost those years because he should have been fighting better guys so that he could keep improving instead of having his career taken backwards with him facing the kinds of guys that a novice would fight.

Stiverne’s opposition has been bad his entire eight-year pro career, and it’s disappointing that he’s only now being stepped up against a quality fighter.



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