Sportinglife.com, UK
July 5 2007
CAN DONAIRE TAME ‘RAGING BULL’?
By Mark Staniforth, PA Sport
He is 5ft 5ins of pure flyweight ferocity, and on Saturday night in
Connecticut Vic Darchinyan intends to extend an unbeaten 28-fight
record
which has not seen him taken the full distance since August 2003.
The Australian’s concussive punching power has him emerge as a major
worldwide star in a division usually associated with fast-limbed
tacticians who pursue their careers on the undercards of bigger men.
Darchinyan will defend his IBF title against Nonito Donaire in his
first fight since his final-round stoppage of Victor Burgos in Carson
City in March which left his opponent hospitalised with serious head
injuries for over a month.
But the 31-year-old insists the chilling experience of seeing Burgos
fighting for his life will not affect his ability to pursue more of
the knockout victories he has come to crave.
"My mindset is all about a knockout," said Darchinyan.
"When I am punching a person, I can feel it. If I am punching a
human, I can knock him out. When I am punching I become stronger and
stronger.
"It is all part of my mentality. I am ready for it. I would love to
be a heavyweight. I know I am going to destroy everyone. All my
power, all my knockouts, are because I believe I can punch harder and
knock out everyone." Darchinyan is a restless fighter. He has talked
audaciously, and a touch ridiculously, of moving up to face
middleweight Jermain Taylor, but the
reality is a future of unification bouts at the super-fly and
bantamweight
limits.
It is that kind of attitude which has earned him a lucrative contract
with the US Showtime network, which will broadcast his fight as the
co-feature
alongside Travis Simms’ defence of his WBA light-middleweight title.
Darchinyan added: "Everyone is going to remember me. I have stayed as
a flyweight because I wanted to unify. Now I believe it is not going
to happen
so I want to move up to super-flyweight and unify there.
"I have two belts and everyone who thinks they are stronger than me
or can beat me, come on. I don’t just want to hide and defend against
small
opponents. I want to fight bigger fighters because I am getting more
powerful."
Darchinyan cemented his reputation as a future hard-punching star
during an amateur career in Armenia, the country of his birth, where
he compiled a 158-18 record with 105 knockouts.
After moving to Australia and becoming an Australian citizen in 2004,
Darchinyan claimed his IBF title in December of the same year with an
11th- round stoppage of Colombian Irene Pacheco.
Coincidentally the only one of Darchinyan’s six title defences which
did not end because of his blurring fists occurred against Donaire’s
brother Glenn, whom he stopped via a sixth-round technical decision
in October last year.
Donaire was struggling to cope with Darchinyan’s power but referee
Tony Weeks deemed that the Filipino’s broken jaw had come from an
accidental head-butt, rather than a punch. Darchinyan took the
decision on the scorecards.
Darchinyan maintains it will be the same story against Nonito,
Glenn’s younger brother by three years, who is 17-1 with 10 stoppage
wins but has never mixed in anything approaching Darchinyan’s class.
The champion also has the extra incentive of proving a point against
Donaire, with many maintaining his brother was denied a rightful shot
at the title when Darchinyan resorted to foul means.
"I think everyone will agree with me that it was as knockout, it was
not a head butt or an elbow," Darchinyan added.
"I broke his jaw and he screeched and put his hands up. I am very
upset and it is still in my mind."
Darchinyan’s explosive style and his desire to push his physical
boundaries could make the lighter weights their most fashionable
since the mid-1990s light-flyweight wars between Michael Carbajal and
Humberto Gonzalez.
It takes a special kind of fighter to rise above the weight issues
which ensure the welterweights’ mixture of speed and power, or the
heavyweights’ sheer knockout ability, will usually grab the
headlines.
Since the halcyon days of Carbajal and Gonzalez’s Tex-Mex wars,
arguably only the magnificent Mexican straw-weight Ricardo Lopez has
gained credibility to match that currently afforded to Darchinyan.
It is not difficult to get to the root of the popularity of the man
who goes by the nickname of ‘Raging Bull’.
"The first time I came to Australia for my first pro fight they told
me I looked like a raging bull," said Darchinyan.
"The Armenians explained to me what Raging Bull means because you are
so like a bull coming forward and you want to destroy your opponent.
I loved it because I feel like it is me. I am going to find my
opponent and destroy him."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
