Darchinyan: The Warrior Who Unifies 115-lbs

PAUL UPHAM

SecondsOut.com

"The Critics Only Remembered 20 Seconds of Darchinyan's Career"

Going into last Saturday’s junior bantamweight world title unification match between Cristian Mijares and Vic Darchinyan in Carson, California on Showtime, many boxing writers had the Mexican a huge favourite to win. Some even suggested that Darchinyan would not even win a round. A reckless statement considering his past achievements, as if Darchinyan landing a punch on Mijares would be like trying to nail jelly to a wall.

In a pre-fight poll of world boxing writers conducted by Showtime, of the thirty-two surveyed, only six had selected Darchinyan to win. At SecondsOut.com the Mijares selection was even more dominate, fourteen of fifteen picking him to win.It was as if the other 29 fights of his career had meant nothing. All Darchinyan’s critics could remember were the 10 seconds when he was knocked out by Nonito Donaire in five rounds in July 2007, his only career defeat.

They had chosen to forget his dominating wins over Dimitri Kirilov, Glenn Donaire, Luis Maldonado (who drew with Mijares), Irene Pacheco and Alejandro Montiel. Darchinyan came out of the shadows to win three world titles at 115lbs. (Read more...)