DARCHINYAN-MALDONADO ARTICLE

SaddoBoxing.com
June 1 2006

Alwa ys entertaining Vic Darchinyan is in action in the chief supporting
fight to the Diego Corrales-Jose Luis Castillo rubber match on
Showtime when he defends his flyweight title against an unbeaten but
little-known Mexican, Luis “Titi” Maldonado.

Last Saturday we saw little men in a dull tactical bout when Jhonny
Gonzalez edged out Fernando Montiel. With Darchinyan in the ring,
though, we know that we will see uncompromising aggression and big
hitting. The Armenian-raised Australian does not hang about: he goes
straight after his opponents and he tries to hurt them early with
big left hands and right hooks from out of his southpaw style.

Darchinyan is one of those fighters who proves that the small men
can make exciting fights and deliver knockouts. He has crunched 20
opponents in his 25 consecutive wins. We saw him on ShoBox in March
when he battered the game Filipino, Diosdado Gabi, in the eighth. It
was Darchinyan’s seventh successive stoppage win.

I think that his trainer, Aussie great Jeff Fenech, would like to see
Darchinyan move his head and slip and duck punches a bit more than
he does instead of marching straight in. Darchinyan, though, has such
confidence in his physical strength and punching power that he thinks
he can walk through anyone. So far he has been able to do just that.

His challenger is one of those mystery fighters. Even though Maldonado
has a great record statistically with 33 wins and a draw in 34 fights,
25 stoppages, he has had all but one of his fights in Mexico against
mostly obscure opponents.

What might be significant is that in the three fights where Maldonado
faced his toughest opposition he had problems each time, winning by
split decision over Gilberto Keb Baas and the southpaw Tomas Rojas
and, in his last fight, being held to a draw by the solid Cristian
Mijares. This suggests to me that he is a little out of his class
against Darchinyan.

Maldonado is likely to be tough and game but I really do not know
what to expect from him. We do know what to expect from Darchinyan,
though, and we definitely will not be bored.

The offshore over/under of 8.5 rounds looks about right and I would
lean a little towards the under, with Darchinyan probably blasting
his way to victory around the eighth.