DARCHINYAN: SMALL BUT PERFECTLY FORMED
ITV.com, UK
March 5 2007
Andy Warhol once famously predicted that ‘In the future, everybody
will be famous for 15 minutes’.
Vic Darchinyan would probably settle for half of that.
The Australia-based Armenian stretched his unbeaten pro record to
28-0 by stopping grizzled Mexican Victor Burgos at the weekend.
It was another exciting performance by Darchinyan, who really should
be a household name by now given his tremendous power and crowd
pleasing style.
The reason he isn’t has nothing to do with his menacing persona, a
boxing skills deficiency or because of any fault of his promotional
team.
It’s because of his size.
Put simply Darchinyan is a little man striving for recognition in an
industry where, rightly or wrongly, big is beautiful.
If the heavyweight division is the Premiership then flyweight,
where Vic currently plies his trade is, in terms of pulling power,
the Unibond League.
And that’s a real tragedy because a fighter like Darchinyan should
be cherished.
He punches like nobody’s business, has a chin like a concrete breeze
block and is only concerned with testing himself against the best
out there.
His promoter Garyy Shaw reckons that if boxing had more fighters like
the IBF champ it wouldn’t be in the sad state it is in now and it’s
difficult to disagree.
The man they call ‘Raging Bull’ didn’t turn pro until he was 24,
but he’s not wasted much time since.
Less than four years after turning over he knocked out the previously
unbeaten Colombian Irene Pacheco to claim the IBF belt.
He has made six successful defences since, winning them all inside
the distance.
If he was three stone heavier he would be known around the world but
as things stand he has to be content with the occasional autograph
request while out and about in Sydney, where he now lives.
Listening to him speak ahead of the Burgos fight and in interviews
immediately after you get the impression that Darchinyan is not
motivated by money and truly believes that boxing is a sport and not
a business.
He wants to test himself against the best out there and for that he
should be applauded.
The best fight out there now would be to move up to super-flyweight
and get it on with Jorge Arce.
Arce is everything Darchinyan isn’t.
A flash, personable Mexican who has his own chat show and who came
into the ring for his last fight on a horse!
However one thing both men do have in common is the ability to fight
and a contest between the two would be guaranteed mayhem, though boxing
politics means that the fight won’t be happening anytime soon (Shaw and
Arce’s promoter Bob Arum are currently involved in a legal wrangle).
Arce said in his post-fight interview that he wants to move up some
three divisions, box new super-bantamweight boss Rafael Marquez,
beat him and then mix it with Filipino buzzsaw Manny Pacquiao.
Such talk may be a tad over-ambitious, but his attitude is so
refreshing and there are several overpaid, overhyped heavyweights
out there who would do well to take a leaf out of little Vic’s book.
As the old saying goes, ‘It’s not the size of the dog in the fight,
it’s the size of the fight in the dog’.
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