Stiverne Captures Vacant WBC Crown With Arreola Stoppage

Despite facing a sharper Chris Arreola in a second fight, Canada’s Bermane Stiverne became the world’s first Haitian born heavyweight world champion by stopping his rival for the WBC title last evening at USC’s Galen Center in Los Angeles, CA.

The media build up to the Stiverne vs. Arreola rematch was uneventful until the final press conference when the fighters displayed genuine animosity and that carried over into last night’s contest.

Arreola came into the ring appearing to be in better shape than last April’s original fight and it wasn’t surprising that he displayed a higher work rate that kept Stiverne on the defensive until the Las Vegas resident shattered Arreola’s momentum with a sharp counter hook.

With that shot that shook Arreola, Stiverne showed that he was still the quicker man but also that he was still fairly hittable himself as Arreola got through with a big right hand.

The third and fourth rounds saw good two way action as Stiverne sought to assert himself with some success but could not break Arreola’s confidence and high work rate as the former world title challenger had his best rounds of both fights against Stiverne.

The pace Arreola set started to wear him down by the fifth and Stiverne started to come to life behind the jab. The sixth saw Stiverne strike paydirt with a hard right that turned Arreola’s legs to jelly.

The Escondido man beat the count but was clearly hurt and tried to clinch but Stiverne could smell blood and refused to let him recover, flooring Arreola through the ropes for a second time.

Arreola again rose to his feet but could not adequately defend himself against Stiverne’s unrelenting assault and the bout was stopped at 2:02 of the sixth frame by referee Jack Reiss.

Stiverne improves to 24-1-1 (21), winning the WBC crown in his first world title opportunity while Arreola falls to 36-4 (31).

Stiverne is now due to defend against unbeaten KO artist and WBC mandatory challenger Deontay Wilder, 31-0 (31), in what is sure to be an intriguing clash.

Wilder can clearly punch with genuine authority but is untested thus far in his six year pro career, with a badly faded former WBO titlist Sergei Liakhovich as the top name on his CV.

After two fights with Arreola, Stiverne has shown that he can hold a good shot but is himself rather inexperienced at world level and thus a fight with Wilder could answer questions about both boxers.