By Rob Smith: Promoter Don King won Saturdays WBC heavyweight purse bid to promote the Chris Arreola vs. Bermane Stivern WBC heavyweight title eliminator bout with the winner to possibly face WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko if he doesn’t retire. King came in with the winning purse bid of $1.1 million, twice as much as runner-up Dan Goosen’s $500,000 bid. Golden Boy Promotions’ bid was $515,000, and WealthTV $132,000.
Chris Arreola
Chris Arreola Working Hard, In Shape At A Reported 245-Pounds; May Fight In November
By James Slater: Rest assured Chris Arreola fans. Though “The Nightmare,” has been quiet as of late (after a most active 2011, during which he fought five times), leading some fans to wonder whether the 31-year-old has lost his desire and piled the pounds back on, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Though the Riverside native has not fought since his February win over Eric Molina (a 1st-round stoppage victory, for which Arreola scaled 245-pounds), he has been working hard in the gym. Just today, ESPN’s Bernardo Osuna posted a Twitter photo of an trim-looking Arreola working on the speed bag in the Riverside Gym. Osuna reports that Arreola weighs exactly the same as he did for his February fight and that he is “eying a possible November return to the ring.”
This is good news. As we know, a dedicated, motivated Arreola is a handful for any heavyweight out there and it would be good to see the WBC#1 ranked heavyweight contender get another fight in before the end of the year. At one point, Arreola, 35-2(30) was very much on Ring Magazine, WBA, IBF and WBO king Wladimir Klitschko’s radar – with “Dr. Steel Hammer” saying he would like to fight in America again and that Arreola was the fighter he had in mind.