METAMORPHOSIS OF VIC DARCHINYAN
Igor Frank

411mania.com
/boxing/81966/Metamorphosis-of-Vic-Darchinyan.htm
Aug 4 2008
TX

Darchinyan wins another title but not before making some changes.

As I woke up Sunday morning in Tacoma Washington, I was still thinking
about a brilliant performance that Vic " The Raging Bull" Darchinyan
put on yesterday at the Emerald Queen Casino by ravaging his opponent
Dimitri Kirilov and thus earning his IBF super flyweight title.

What a difference a year makes. Last year I saw Darchinyan twice:
once in April beating undersized and overmatched Victor Burgos, who
ended up seriously hurt and in the hospital in Carson, California,
throwing a haymaker after a haymaker and the second time in Bridgeport,
Connecticut when Vic was separated from his senses by a perfectly
placed left hook of "The Flash" Nonito Donaire in what many considered
to be an upset of the year. In both fights Vic looked like a crude
banger, who threw one punch at a time with singular purpose to knock
you out, not much technique, just stocking and banging. It worked
for most of his career, but in a fight with Donaire, Flash was able
to time him and counterpunch with a lot of success and deliver a one
punch knock out that fans are still talking about. It was a kind of
punch that not many can recover from; consider that plus a near fatal
conclusion to a Burgos fight, that obviously bothered Darchinyan for
a while and many thought that Vic was damaged goods. When I previewed
this contest between Kirilov and Darchinyan a week ago I called it
a classic match up of boxer versus puncher and was not really sure
about the outcome, but the way the fight unfolded was a complete
surprise to me.

The puncher, Darchinyan turned boxer, he was on fire from the onset:
he moved, threw a lot of jabs and straight left hands right down
the middle.

Supposedly , Kirilov had a lot of experience fighting southpaws,
but he seemed lost in the ring with Vic, who moved his right leg on
the outside of Dmitri’s left leg and was always in perfect position
to fire a straight left hand that was landing with hammer like power
and an alarming regularity.

Darchinyan looked like he had more balance and he actually moved to
avoid blows from his adversary and his punches looked different:
they were straight and on target. From the second round on Vic
continued to throw dynamic, fast and accurate combinations of jabs
crosses hooks and uppercuts mixed in with thunderous body punches
that reverberated outside the ring and made me wince. Vic actually
boxed like a true professional with a confidence of a champion. It
was the most impressive performance that I have ever seen from Vic
and the most dramatic change that I have seen in a fighter in a long
time. By the end of the third round I started to worry for the safety
of Kirilov in lieu of him catching a huge amount of hard shots from
Vic, so I was relived when Dimitri was counted out at the beginning
of the fifth stanza and the fight was over.

Darchinyan promised a thriller and a knock out and he delivered in
a spectacular fashion.

So, as I was going down to a hotel lobby to get my morning coffee I was
still thinking about a miraculous transformation of Vic Darchinyan and
what could have caused it when I ran into a man I saw in Vic’s corner
last night. His name is Vazgen Badalian and he was called in from
Armenia to help after Vic parted with his trainer Billy Hussein. I
congratulated Vazgen on a tremendous victory and asked him what he
thought. He told me that he knew and trained Vic in Armenia since he
was eight years old and if Vic concentrates on task at hand he can
produce performances like that every time.

Mr. Vazgen Badalian is a famous and well respected trainer who has
developed a lot of amateur stand outs in Armenia and was in charge of
the Olympic team of that country. Let’s not forget that Vic Darchinyan
had a stellar amateur career: 178 fights, bronze medal at European
Championship in Greece in 1998, bronze medal in Goodwill Games in New
York in 1998, gold medal in European Championship in Ukraine in 1999
and was a member of Armenian Olympic team in 2000. One does not get
that far without knowing how to box. May be, Vic had so much success
in knocking people out that he forgot how to do it for a while. Well,
that time is over. Mr. Badalian brought Vic back to basics and brought
discipline back to his camp and Darchinyan looks to be a complete
fighter that has all the tools to compete on the elite level and he
is going to need all of it and more to vie with guys he called out:
Christian Mijares, Fernando Montiel and Nonito Donaire. In the ring,
Vic looks like a scorpion , predator, ready to strike at any time,
but in this fight he started to remind me of bare knuckle fighters of
19th century, guys that fought wars and did not mind spilling blood
and did not call it a sport." I like my style," said Darchinyan in
his post fight interview:" I am open, but you can not touch me." And
that certainly was the case on Saturday night when Vic stormed back on
the scene of super hot and talented 115 pound division in a dramatic
fashion and got himself right in the middle of some very intriguing
match ups.