DARCHINYAN: LITTLE GUY, LARGE MOUTH
By Ron Borges
The Sweet Science
cle/6312/darchinyan-little-guy-large-mouth/
Oct 30 2008
Vic Darchinyan has something to say. This is not a new occurrence.
Saturday night the IBF super flyweight champion intends to knock out
smooth boxing WBC and WBA titleholder Cristian Mijares. This is not
only something he says he will do but it’s something he now insists
would have already happened if he could speak Spanish himself.
"The last press conference I was speaking in English and everyone
understood what I was saying," Darchinyan growled recently. "Mijares
was speaking in Spanish and not in English (which kind of figures
since he’s from Mexico) but after I found out he was not translating
everything. He said something in Mexican (or maybe Spanish?) that
I’m talking because I’m afraid of him.
"If I know he’s talking like that, I would knock him out in that
moment. If I’m scared I’m going to show on November 1st what I’m going
to do to you. I’m going to break you in half! No one will remember
him after I finish him."
In the end this may not prove to be factual but it is the way
Darchinyan sees the world. Every day is a fight for him and every
fighter someone who needs to be destroyed. Maybe when you grew up
in a difficult place like Armenia in the years of Russian oppression
and you weigh only 114 pounds to boot that’s how you look at things
to survive. You look for a fight and you let the world know it.
Or, then again, maybe Victor Darchinyan is just a bad guy?
"I’m a bad guy?" he thunders at the thought of it. "Why I’m a bad
guy? All Armenians know it’s going to be me (winning) in Los Angeles. I
become the undisputed world champion. I’m going to deliver that night."
Mijares (35-3-2, 13 KO) is on most pound-for-pound lists because
of his nearly perfect technical skills and his ability to use them
to daunt and dominate opponents. That’s what he did to a similarly
trash talking Jorge Arce a year and a half ago and it is what he has
promised to do to Darchinyan Saturday night at the Home Depot Center
outside of Los Angeles.
Darchinyan hears this kind of talk and loses his mind, assuming
he has one to lose. He talks like a madman and pretty much fights
the same way. This has made him not only a two-time world champion
but also a fighter who is both hugely popular and wholly reviled,
depending on what crowd you’re talking to.
"People are talking about the Mexican crowd (in LA)," Darchinyan yaps
pugnaciously. "After two rounds you’re not going to hear any Mexican
crowd. You’re only going to hear Armenian crowd."
In Los Angeles?
"A few rounds after that you’re going to see Mexican crowd supporting
me," he continued. "Of course they’ll like my style. They don’t like
people who are just touching and running.
"He is only talk. I’m going to prove that he’s nothing. I wish his
corner the best in the fight because he’s going to be badly damaged."
Anyone can talk like this before a fight but when your record is 30-1-1
with 24 knockouts, such threats carry a bit more weight. That’s true
even if you carry only 114 pounds. Say what you will about Victor
Darchinyan, he comes not only with a heavy tongue but also with heavy
hands and bad intentions.
He will bring all of these into the ring with him Saturday night. Now
whether they will often land on Mijares is another matter altogether
but it’s not one that Darchinyan feels compelled to discuss.
He dismisses Mijares’ boxing skills as equivalent to running away
and he seems blind to the possibility that what befell Arce could
ever happen to him.
Arce, too, came into the Mijares fight believing he could rely on his
own heavy hands. He felt once he landed a few times the issue would
be decided. Well, A) he’s still waiting to land a few times and B)
the issue was decided – in a lopsided manner for Mijares.
Jorge Arce talked big but when the fight came he carried a little
stick and it seldom landed. By the end, he was utterly frustrated by
Mijares’ quickness and style to the point where he became a broken
and beaten man. Could the WBC-WBA champion not be capable of doing the
same thing to Darchinyan, who seems cut from the same cloth as Arce?
Wash your mouth out with Armenian soap!
"I’m going to make him look like a very silly fighter," Darchinyan
said when Arce’s sad fate was brought up. "I’m going to knock him
out. You’re going to see how he is after this fight. You say my style
is very, very awkward. I know what I’m doing!
"I just hope he’ll stay in the ring and not throw in the towel and
stop fighting. You’re going to see very big punishment (if Mijares
does stand and fight). He’s going to be punished. He won’t fight for
a couple of years."
With the volume at which Victor Darchinyan talks, if Cristian Mijares
doesn’t fight for a couple of years after Saturday night it might be
from an ear infection.
"You’ll see!" Darchinyan snaps again. "I’m not just strong fighter. I’m
a smart fighter. He’s overrated. I’m going to prove it. I’m going to
fight him like there’s not going to be any more fights."
More than likely Cristian Mijares is going to fight him in the hope
that there won’t be any more press conferences.