By Scott Gilfoid: This Saturday night we’re going to be seeing the next opponent for unbeaten heavyweight talent #3 WBC Deontay Wilder (31-0, 31 KO’s) in the rematch between #2 WBC Chris Arreola (36-3, 31 KO’s) and #1 WBC Bermane Stiverne (23-1-1, 20 KO’s) at the Galen Center, in Los Angeles, California, USA. In a indication of what Showtime and HBO thought of the Arreola-Stiverne rematch, they passed on the idea of televising the fight. Instead of the fight being televised on one of those cable giants, ESPN will be televising the fight on Saturday.
That’s kind of an indication that the World Boxing Council made a mistake of picking Arreola and Stiverne to fight for the vacant WBC title rather than someone like Deontay. It was only last year when Stiverne gave Arreola a pounding in winning an easy 12 round decision. When you have a fight that recent, you don’t want to order those two fighters to face each other again, because the fight fans/cable networks s will zero interest in seeing that fight. I mean, the WBC can do anything they want, but they made a major blow it move in choosing Arreola and Stiverne to fight again. Arreola already had his chance against Stiverne and he failed, so he shouldn’t be fighting him again.
Stiverne, 6’2″, is short and he’s going to have problems against a fighter as tall and as powerful as the 6’7″ Deontay. This will likely turn out to be a huge mismatch, because Deontay won’t be close enough for Stiverne to land with his short arms and it’s going to be a case where Stiverne is going to be getting hit with some tremendous right hands to the head. Stiverne doesn’t move his head much, so he’s going to get hit solid each time Deontay throws one of his right hand power shots and left hooks.
Arreola has already taken major beatings against Vitali Klitschko and Stiverne, and I don’t give him any chance of even getting to a fight against Deontay. Stiverne will easily beat him again, and, yeah, he’ll likely break Arreola’s nose again for a second time. Arreola vs. Deontay would be a good fight due to the power that both fighters have, but I can’t see it happening. Arreola is going to take another beating from Stiverne, and it’s going to be brutal. Arreola’s corner should think seriously about throwing in the towel early in this fight so that he doesn’t take needless punishment from Stiverne.
Deontay can’t wait to get at one of these two guys, as he sees them both as flawed heavyweights that don’t belong in the same ring with him. Deontay feels that he has all the advantages to speak of – age, speed, power, size and defensive ability – over the Arreola-Stiverene winner, and he’s probably right. We’re not talking about the best heavyweights that ever breathed in the Arreola-Stiverne fight.
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