Chris Arreola vs Bermane Stiverne purse bid: Don King buys fight at $1.1 million

The WBC heavyweight eliminator between Chris Arreola and Bermane Stiverne went to purse bid today, with Don King dropping some shock-and-awe with a massive $1.1 million bid, totally blowing competitors out of the water.

King, who promotes Stiverne, is without question overspending on this fight, but he's got it, so we'll see what he can actually do with it now. Arreola's promoter Goossen Tutor bid $550,000, with Golden Boy Promotions offering $512,000, and upstart boxing carrier Wealth TV putting in a $132,000 offer.

Arreola (35-2, 30 KO) and Stiverne (22-1-1, 20 KO) are fighting for the right to challenge, as it stands at the moment, Vitali Klitschko. Vitali has already faced Arreola, pulverizing him back in September 2009.

This fight is really not worth what King paid for it, but considering he doesn't do much promoting anymore, and lives in a fantasy world where he says things like he could sell 100,000 tickets to a Tavoris Cloud-Gabriel Campillo rematch in Florida, it's less surprising the more you think about it. In King's world, this gigantic heavyweight clash may be just the thing to wake boxing from its slumber and kickstart the entire sport into a new golden age of pugilistic dominance over the sports section of your USA Today newspaper and www.com. Only in America!

As a side note, the last time Arreola fought in February, he used his post-fight interview to call Don King a racist.