By Keith Idec

Deontay Wilder has no idea why Bermane Stiverne has shown so much animosity toward him.

The unbeaten WBC heavyweight champion just knows he has grown tired of hearing Stiverne’s excuses for losing their heavyweight title fight in January 2015. Stiverene says he was “sick” when he lost his title to Wilder by unanimous decision and that he’ll prove he is the better fighter in their rematch Saturday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

“I consider him a sore loser,” Wilder told BoxingScene.com. “I tell people all the time before I fight them, I let the fighters know, l let the fans know, don’t make excuses for my wins when I win. They did just that. Everybody’s gonna have an excuse. The thing about it is, nobody wants to hear an excuse once you lose. When you lose, you lose. Deal with it.

“But if it’s an excuse that actually occurred, keep it to yourself and amongst your team. Go back into the gym and work on that. Because people don’t wanna hear that when you lose. I think that’s the thing with Stiverne – he talked so much, he promised so much and didn’t deliver none of it. And for that reason, he’s bitter. He’s got some type of hatred towards me or whatever, but I’m gonna beat it out of him come November the 4th.”

Wilder was supposed to battle Cuban southpaw Luis Ortiz (27-0, 23 KOs, 2 NC) on Saturday night, but Ortiz tested positive for two banned substances last month. The WBC subsequently ordered Wilder (38-0, 37 KOs) to make a mandatory defense of his title against Stiverne (25-2-1, 21 KOs).

Las Vegas’ Stiverne, who’ll turn 39 on Wednesday, had been training to box Dominic Breazeale (18-1, 16 KOs) on the Wilder-Ortiz undercard. When Stiverne replaced Ortiz, Breazeale, of Eastvale, California, agreed to encounter Eric Molina (26-4, 19 KOs), of Weslaco, Texas, in a WBC elimination match on the undercard.

Showtime will televise the Wilder-Stiverne rematch as the main event of a tripleheader scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.

In the co-featured fight, former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (27-2-1, 17 KOs), of Akron, Ohio, will square off against Adrian Granados (18-5-2, 12 KOs), of Cicero, Illinois, in a 10-round welterweight match. The telecast will start with a 12-round bout between Kazakhstan’s Sergey Lipinets (12-0, 10 KOs) and Japan’s Akihiro Kondo (29-6-1, 16 KOs) for the vacant IBF junior welterweight title.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.