By Allan Fox: #1 WBC Chris Arreola (35-2, 30 KO’s) and #2 WBC Bermane Stiverne (22-1-1, 20 KO’s) will be facing each on December 15th in a WBC Heavyweight Title Eliminator at a still to be determined venue. The winner of the Arreola-Stiverne fight will become the mandatory challenger to WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko. With Vitali possibly retiring at any time, the winner of the Arreola vs. Stiverne fight could wind up the WBC heavyweight champion in the near future, possibly by early 2013.

That’s kid of a scary thought because both Stiverne and Arreola are far from solid choices to hold down the World Boxing Council title for any length of time unless they’re matched selectively.

Arreola has already been beaten by Vitali and Tomasz Adamek in the past. Arreola,31, is still pretty much the same fighter that lost to both of those guys. The only difference is that he’s a little thinner, a little faster and a little weaker than he was in the past. He can still punch, but having trimmed down from the 260s to the mid-240s has left Arreola a weaker puncher.

Stiverne is the bigger puncher compared to Arreola and he’ll have a good chance of beating him if he can land his big right hands on Arreola’s chin. Arreola was hurt in the 1st round in his last fight against Eric Molina last February against a little known fringe contender. Arreola turned around and stopped Molina in the same round, but that wasn’t a good sign. Arreola won’t be able to do the same thing against Stivene because he has a really solid chin, so if he’s able to hurt Arreola with a big right hand, you can expect Stiverne to finish him off.

Arreola’s promoters have matched him against seven weak opponents since he was beaten by Adamek in 2010. They’ve done a good job of getting Arreola to the point where he is now, but the soft matchmaking probably hasn’t helped Arreola’s career any because he can’t progress in facing the kinds of guys he’s been facing lately.