Boxing

Darchinyan Crushes Mijares; Chavez, Arce, Donaire Win

What a busy weekend for boxing, at least in the “guys you haven’t really heard of” category. If you’re a boxing fanatic, you knew there were a lot of big names in little divisions in action over the weekend, headlined by Showtime’s feature bout between Vic Darchinyan and Christian Mijares.

In the classic matchup of puncher vs. boxer, many (including myself) expected the traditional boxer to box his way to a decision win. But a funny thing happened before this fight: Vic Darchinyan learned to box.

No one will ever confuse Darchinyan with Sugar Ray Leonard, but he sure did put on a show Saturday night. From the first round, you could see that Mijares was not very comfortable with Darchinyan’s style. Darchinyan was extremely aggressive, but defensive at the same time (if you can picture that). Mijares got knocked down at the end of the first round, but it was just a matter of time before he got caught again.

Mijares seemed to settle down after the first and had his moments, but it seemed as if he were just waiting for Darchinyan to get tired, then he would hurt him. Three problems: 1) Mijares has no power; 2) Darchinyan has a great chin; and 3) Darchinyan didn’t get tired. That meant that it was a matter of time until Mijares got caught again, and he did at the end of the ninth round.

Darchinyan landed a straight left that caught Mijares backing up, sending him flying directly backwards, nearly catching his head on the ropes. Midway through the count, the referee waved it off.

While it was a fantastic fight for Darchinyan, equally notable was how poorly Mijares fought. The boxer got caught fighting a fight that would set him up for counter-punches, yet he rarely let his hands go. The same could be said for his jab, which was effective at controlling Darchinyan, as well as setting up power punches, but again, he didn’t let his hands go.

In essence, Mijares volunteered himself to be a punching bag with the style he fought. In his words, he said that he fought with his balls, and not his head. True enough, but when fighting with his balls, he forgot to fight with his hands.

This was a great win for Darchinyan, and opens up some interesting possibilities for him, including going after Fernando Montiel, who holds the only other belt at 115, or avenging his lone defeat to Nonito Donaire. Either way, we may have seen Darchinyan’s final fight as an underdog.

Elsewhere in boxing land:

- Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. once again defeated Matt Vanda, only this time decisively, in another 10-round slugfest.

- Jorge Arce defeated Isidro Garcia on Saturday, then promptly continued to call out Israel Vazquez, a move that can only lead to Arce getting viciously beaten by the much bigger, stronger and better Vazquez.

- Also winners this weekend were Nonito Donaire, Fernando Montiel, Daniel Ponce de Leon, Lamont Peterson, Andre Dirrell, Ulises Solis, Felix Sturm, Brian Minto and Sergiy Dzinziruk. Busy weekend around the world.

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