Bermane Stiverne captured the WBC Heavyweight title with an explosive 6th round stoppage over Chris Arreola at the Galen Center in Los Angeles.
Stiverne hurt Arreola at the end of the first frame from a hard combination. That only seemed to wake Arreola as in round’s three and four, he had Stiverne in trouble with quick and hard combinations.
In round six, Stiverne landed a huge right hook to the temple over a Arreola jab and Arreola crumpled to the canvas. Arreola was clearly hurt and ate a huge flurry of punches and went to the deck for a 2nd time. Arreola could have been stopped there but was allowed to continue only to eat a handful more of thudding power shots and referee Jack Reiss stopped the bout at 2:06.
Stiverne, 239 1/2 lbs of Haiti is now 24-1 with 21 knockouts. Arreola, 239 lbs of Riverside, CA is now 36-4.
Amir Imam remained undefeated by scoring an 8-round unanimous decision over Yordenis Ugas in a Jr. Welterweight bout.
Ugas started well over the first three rounds as he was aggressive and countered well. Imam came on in round five and landed some solid flurries over the final five rounds to win by scores of 79-73 and 78-74 twice.
Imam, 139 1/2 lbs is now 14-0. Ugas, 140 lbs is 15-3.
