ESPN.com doesn’t have to conduct a poll to find out why fans like to watch Vic Darchinyan. If you’re familiar with the Australia-based super flyweight, the reasons are self-evident: Vic talks big, punches bigger and postures as if his role models were the Iron Sheik and whoever is trying to kill Jack Bauer.
But to understand why Darchinyan is a keeper, you have to put on your round glasses and white beard. After a single session, Ziggy Freud would declare, “Vic is a 115-pound heavyweight, but without a heavyweight’s fragility.”
The good doctor would be speaking psychologically, of course.
On Saturday, super flyweight titlist Darchinyan, 31-1-1 (25 KOs), will defend three alphabet belts against former junior flyweight titlist Jorge Arce in Anaheim. Darchinyan has promised Arce “is going to be my human pi?ata.”
Same old Vic — but not really.
Darchinyan was declared one-dimensional, if not entirely dismissible, after the first loss of his career, a one-punch disaster against Nonito Donaire in 2007. Until that point, he was unbeaten, with a record of 7-0 (6 KOs) in title fights. And the one opponent who didn’t get stopped, Nonito’s older brother Glenn, suffered a broken jaw.
“Vic was consumed by the fact that his win over [Glenn] Donaire was called a technical decision, and something other than a knockout,” said Gary Shaw, who promotes Darchinyan. “That’s all he cared about.”
Maybe it helped that after Nonito Donaire restored his family’s pride, Darchinyan had no memory of the left hook that had separated him from a version of the flyweight title. In fact, in the immediate aftermath, he wasn’t even aware that he had been KO’d.
Instead of stewing in his own vulnerability (as a previously undefeated heavyweight might have done), Darchinyan used the bout to facilitate change. For a pure puncher, that’s a tough thing to do.
“The loss to Donaire was the best thing that ever happened to Vic,” Shaw said. “It humbled him hugely. He still believes he can beat everybody, and if I told him tomorrow that he was gonna fight Manny Pacquiao at 130 pounds, he’d be the most excited fighter in the world. But he’s different now. He takes more interest in defense and style. He may not always like it, but now he’s under control.”
“If I had been a betting man,” said Showtime analyst Al Bernstein, “I would’ve bet that after the knockout loss to Donaire, Darchinyan wouldn’t have been the same fighter. But I think what happened to him is similar to what happened to Pacquiao. When Pacquiao moved up in weight to fight guys like David Diaz and Oscar De La Hoya, he realized he could be hurt, and he reinvented himself.
“For Darchinyan to do the same thing at his age [Darchinyan is now 33] is very impressive. He still has a gunslinger mentality, but he’s going about it in a different way. He’s paying more attention to detail, and as a result, there’s a big difference between the fighter now and two years ago.”
Since losing to Donaire, Darchinyan is 3-0-1. He knocked out Filipino club fighter Federico Catubay; drew in the Philippines with world-class local favorite Z Gorres; dethroned super flyweight titlist Dimitri Kirilov in five rounds; and, most impressively, crushed two-time titlist and pound-for-pound entrant Cristian Mijares in nine one-sided rounds.
“I didn’t think he’d beat Mijares, and he knew I didn’t think he’d beat him,” Shaw said. “But every day his new manager, Elias Nassar, would send me an e-mail mentioning Mijares, and every day he’d write Mijares’ name in bigger type.
“And before the fight, at every meal Vic would make the same speech about how he was faster and stronger than Mijares and was gonna break him down. And now he’s saying, ‘If you think I was good against Mijares, wait until you see me against Arce.'”
Before the Mijares fight, Ivan Goldman wrote in The Ring magazine that Darchinyan was “largely considered an overconfident, egomaniacal goofball on a downward slide.”
It’s safe to say that perception has changed.
We’re all at least occasionally guilty of overvaluing a fighter’s most recent bout, and Darchinyan might never sparkle as brightly as he did in mangling Mijares. But here’s a surgeon general-type warning for Arce: If this 115-pound heavyweight is indeed just learning how sweet his science can be, one of the most exciting fighters in the world might also become one of the best.
Steve Farhood is a boxing analyst for Showtime and a writer/columnist for Boxing Monthly.
