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The WBC heavyweight title eliminator that Don King grossly overpaid to stage between Chris Arreola and Bermane Stiverne will reportedly take place on December 15 in Venezuela, where neither fighter is from.
Arreola, a Mexican-American, and Stiverne, born in Haiti and based in Canada, will fight for the right to take a shot at Vitali Klitschko, who holds the WBC title still. Arreola lost to Klitschko back in 2009.
King, who promotes Stiverne, paid an absurd $1.1 million at the purse bid for this fight. Arreola's promoter Dan Goossen put down $550,000, which made some sense, and Golden Boy Promotions went in at $512,000, which made sense since they have money to throw around, and WealthTV offered a sane $132,000.
King later defended the move, calling Arreola-Stiverne a superfight, which it most certainly is not. There are a few things that could be at play here. First off, Venezuelan officials may simply be offering good money to stage this fight down there, where they could market it as a world-class sporting event with international stars and the like, and basically offset King's purse bid and then some.
Or it could be a play to try and get Arreola to balk, which could result in Stiverne being positioned for a shot at Vitali.
Or it could just be a bunch of nonsense, and this fight won't really happen at all, and certainly not in Venezuela.