By CARLOS ARIAS
LOS ANGELES --- Bermane Stiverne sat there stewing as his promoter Don King prattled on about everything from women's equality, Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora, singer Ray Parker Jr. and the heavyweight championship bout between Stiverne and Chris Arreola for about 90 minutes at Thursday's final pre-fight press conference at the Founders Club at USC's Galen Center.
Stiverne, who faces Arreola for the vacant WBC heavyweight title on Saturday at USC's Galen center on ESPN, was overflowing with emotion and could barely put together a sentence when he finally got his turn at the podium before he unloaded everything that was pent-up inside of him leading up to the rematch against Arreola.
"Ain't no way he gonna beat me," Stiverne said.
"Say it loud," King said, "I'm black and I'm proud!"
Stiverne continued.
"Ain't no way he gonna beat me. They can talk the talk. I don't talk. I talk in the ring. I let the media talk even when they talk s---, because most of them never been in the ring. I'm done talking."
But then Stiverne, who knocked down Arreola and broke his nose en route to a convincing decision in their first fight in April 2013, continued to talk.
"I do my talking in the ring," he continued. "So I know Chris like to talk. He do what he do best ... talking."
Then Stiverne stared down at Arreola, who was sitting to his left.
"I don't have excuses, but if you think for one minute that I couldn't knock you out the last fight, you wrong, so wrong. You wrong. What you didn't know was that was the plan ... to whup your ass. Not to knock you out, but to whup ... this fight I'm gonna drop you, you're gonna get up, I'm gonna whup you and then I'm going to knock you out.
"That silly face you got right now that don't matter. In the back of your mind you know, you know (slams podium), I swear to God you know what going to happen. Make sure you people look at me, stare at me, it don't matter, because in that ring that mouth of yours is gonna shut it down.
"This ain't know joke. This time ain't no joke. I'm gonna to take yo head off. You can weigh what you want. It don't matter. You can be in shape all you want. That don't matter. It doesn't matter. You ain't got the skills I got or the power I got. Whatever you do, I do it better.
"Remember where I'm from. You got all the balls and heart you want. That ain't gonna help. Nothing gonna help you. Think about that tonight when you alone, because I'm for real. Ain't nobody gonna beat me.
"Haiti gonna have a new champion. I'm gonne bring the belt back to America, and it's gonna stay in America (slams podium), and it's gonna stay around my waist (slams podium). That's all I got to say."
Arreola's promoter Dan Goossen was trying to make a bet with King about the losing promoter having to shave his head when Stiverne interrupted and took the microphone.
"I'll give you my whole purse if I lose," Stiverne told Goossen.
"Now you got my blood boiling right now," Arreola said when he finally got his turn at the podium.
"No excuses motherf-----," Stiverne broke in to say. "You gonna be like, 'I lost too much weight.' Talking about, 'I broke my nose.' Motherf-----, I broke your nose."
Responded Arreola: "I know you broke my nose. I said you broke my noise."
There were a lot of verbal shots exchanged as the press conference got out of control.
"Before, I had respect for him, Arreola said. "He was a quiet dude. That's cool. But now I'm gonna f--- you up.
"This Saturday you guys are gonna watch a great fight and you are going to watch history be made by me. Not this Haitian ... this Mexican is going to do it. I'm going to do it. That's a fact."
Stiverne and Arreola were kept apart and didn't pose for a traditional staredown photo. Both fighters left without answering questions from the media. There really wasn't much left to be said at that point.
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