By Francisco Salazar
Looks like the rematch between heavyweight contenders Bermane Stiverne and Chris Arreola will take place at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, CA.
The Galen Center is located on the campus of the University of Southern California (USC).
The rematch is scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 10th and will be televised live on ESPN, not on ESPN2, where the “Friday Night Fights” telecasts are normally shown.
Both fighters will be vying for the vacant WBC heavyweight title.
In their first fight, which took place in Ontario, CA on April 27th, Stiverne dropped Arreola in the third round en route to winning a 12 round unanimous decision over Arreola.
The Haitian-born Stiverne (23-1-1, 20 KOs) has not fought since the Arreola fight. He was seeking a fight against then-WBC champion Vitali Klitschko, but that fight never materialized.
In November, Stiverne sued his Don King, alleging violations of the Muhammad Ali Act for a contract he had signed with the eccentric promoter in 2011. He would eventually drop the lawsuit over a month later as the WBC forced King to begin negotiations for a rematch with Arreola as the top available contenders to fight for the title Klitschko would vacate.
Arreola (36-3, 31 KOs) suffered a broken nose from the knockdown in the fight, recovered, and got back in the win column with a first round knockout over Seth Mitchell on September 7th.
The popular Mexican-American conducted his training camp in Phoenix and not in his hometown of Riverside. He will begin camp with longtime trainer Henry Ramirez in San Diego on Monday.
No word yet on if there will be a televised co-feature bout or who will appear on the non-televised undercard.
Francisco A. Salazar has written for Boxingscene.com since September of 2012 and has covered boxing in Southern California and abroad since 2000. He also covers boxing for the Ventura County (CA) Star newspaper, RingTV, and Knockout Nation. He can be reached by email at santio89@yahoo.com or on Twitter at FSalazarBoxing