DARCHINYAN, ARCE TO TAKE BAD BLOOD INTO RING IN FEBRUARY
By Dan Rafael

ESPN
Nov 26 2008

For more than a year, one of the most talked-about potential fights
in boxing has been a showdown between brash brawlers Vic Darchinyan
and Jorge Arce.

It took ’em a while to come around, but now the fight is a done
deal, organizers told ESPN.com. Arce promoter Top Rank finalized the
remaining details with Showtime on Tuesday.

Darchinyan will defend his unified junior bantamweight titles against
Arce at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., on Feb. 7 in the season
premiere of "Showtime Championship Boxing."

"I think it’s a spectacular fight," Darchinyan promoter Gary Shaw
said. "The press conferences may be as good as the fight. I can’t
wait for both the press conferences and the fight."

Darchinyan, an Armenian living in Australia, and Mexico’s Arce had
been building toward a match last year as they trash-talked each
other and stoked fan interest.

However, bad blood between Top Rank and Shaw, combined with Arce
(51-4-1, 39 KOs) suffering a one-sided decision loss to Cristian
Mijares in April 2007 and Darchinyan (31-1-1, 25 KOs) losing his
flyweight title via brutal knockout to Nonito Donaire in July 2007,
knocked the fight off track.

Finally, the time was right: the promoters have settled the
differences; Arce has won five fights in a row while claiming
an interim belt; and Darchinyan moved up to join Arce at junior
bantamweight, where he won a title and then unified three belts with
a ninth-round knockout of Mijares on Nov. 1.

Also on Nov. 1, but on a different card, Arce retained his interim
belt by knocking out former flyweight titleholder Isidro Garcia in
the fourth round.

"Everything in life is about timing and the timing is right for GSP
[Gary Shaw Productions] and Top Rank and for Darchinyan-Arce," Shaw
said. "Vic told me he will beat Arce worse than he beat Mijares. He
told me to schedule it only for four rounds because he said that is
all he will need."

Just before the bout was finalized, Darchinyan was already anticipating
the deal, saying, "If Arce thinks he has a snowball’s chance in
hell of beating me than he’s a bigger sucker than those lollipops
he chews on. The last real ring test he had was against Cristian
Mijares in 2007 and we all know how that ended. It was a murderous
unanimous decision victory for Mijares, scored 119-109, 118-110 and
117-111. And everyone saw what I did to Mijares on Nov. 1. Arce is
going to be my human piñata."

Top Rank’s Bob Arum said the televised undercard bout had not been
finalized but that it could involve junior middleweight Julio Cesar
Chavez Jr. in his Showtime debut.

Arum was pleased that the deal for the main event came together.

"I think it’s a very interesting fight," Arum said. "Everybody worked
together but the guy who has to get credit for getting all these crazy
people together, myself included, is [Showtime’s] Ken Hershman. That’s
the fight he wanted and he got it done."

Dan Rafael is the boxing writer for ESPN.com.

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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress