By Mike S: Chris “The Nightmare” Arreola and Bermaine Stiverne are close to locking horns again in Villahermosa, Mexico this June in a fight that will be reportedly be aired by HBO in the States. Stiverne won the first meeting by a wide UD after smashing Arreola’s nose and dropping him in the third round. Arreola was in flabby condition AGAIN, and seemed to just sit back and wait for something to happen. It never did.
Since then Arreola has made a commitment to his conditioning and body weight and looked much better in his first round TKO of the glass chinned Seth Mitchell last September. Stiverne, strung along by Vitali Klitschko and the WBC will have been out of the ring for well over a year bay the time this rematch comes around. While it is normally not wise to remain inactive for that long, there is a pretty obvious reason why Stiverne chose not to risk his no.1 ranking while in wait.
Stiverne’s career is littered with no names, low tier journeyman, and guys with double digit losses all over the place, including his TKO loss to Demetrice King, who was 11-15 at the time. Outside his upset of Arreola his “big wins” have came against Ray Austin and Kerston Manswell. While suffering a couple losses in his efforts Arreola has been in the ring with Vitali Klitschko, Tomasz Adamek, Jameel McCline, Travis Walker, Brian Minto, and even Chazz Witherspoon. I think its safe to assume that Stiverne would have a couple more L’s on his record had he ever faced some stiffer competition.
Stiverne has a big right hand and some decent lateral footwork, but fights at one speed. IF Arreola comes into this fight in the same shape he was when he fought Mitchell look for a different result in this one as Arreola will try to swarm and get to Stiverne ASAP. With his sometimes wide angled attack Arreola often leaves himself open to counter shots and had been dropped by Stiverne before.
Don’t bet on this one going all twelve rounds either way. Fact is whoever wins is going to have their work cut out for them with Deontay Wilder and Wladimir Klitschko both looming on the horizon.
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