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Australian flyweight king Vic Darchinyan made the most of his sudden opportunity as the headliner for Showtime boxing on Saturday night at the Thomas and Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Darchinyan used his phenomemal punching power to overwhelm tough Mexican Luis Maldonado and force referee Joe Cortez to halt the bout at 1:38 of round 8.
The IBF/IBO Flyweight Title bout was originally scheduled as an undercard to the main event between between Diego Corrales vs. Jose Luis Castillo until Castillo failed to make the weight limit, cancelling their much anticipated fight. The promoters decided the show must go on and the main event was suddenly between the two undefeated 112 pounders.
Darchinyan proved once again that exciting knockout power can take place in the lower weight classes while succesfully defending his title for the fourth time.
The first round was mostly a feeling out process, with Darchinyan methodically stalking the constantly moving Maldonado , who decided to switch to southpaw after absorbing a heavy left from Darchinyan, a sign of things to come. A nice flurry from the fighters in the last 10 seconds got the crowds approval as Darchinyan secured round 1 on the cards.
Round 2 saw Maldonado keep a tight defense from the southpaw stance, obviously aware of the Aussie’s heavy hands. Darchinyan broke thru with a few heavy punches as Maldonado switched his stance back and forth, trying to figure out what would work best against the awkward and free punching Darchinyan.
Maldonado had enough success landing punches in the last half of the round to take round 2 in the eyes of 2 of the 3 ringside judges. Another free swinging final 10 seconds kept the crowd buzzing as both fighters took each other’s landing punches pretty well.
The Australian (by way of Armenia) had quite the vocal support of his countrymen at the Thomas and Mack despite the small crowd as he started to find the timing of his punches.
Round 4 showed that Darchinyan is perhaps more a well rounded boxer than meets the eye, as he started to often land his right jab, kept his hands up showing some good defense, and showed some fine counterpunching skills.
What was most obvious was that Darchinyan started to consistently find a home for his money punch, the straight left, the force often snapping Maldonado’s head back and opening a cut around the right eye.
The tough Maldonado was certainly game and even pressed forward at times, but was physically outmatched by the unusually strong 112 pound champion.
Tales of training camp wars have alluded to Darchinyan giving certain top level superbantamweight (122 pound) fighters hell in sparring matches.
Maldonado showed his toughness when Vic “Raging Bull” Darchinyan landed a vicious left uppercut to punctuate the fifth round.
Darchinyan simply took over the fight by round 6 and a couple of flush punches brought Maldonado to a knee, forcing referee Joe Cortez to administer the mandatory eight count as Maldonado gathered his senses.
By the 7th round, a few of my fellow ringside writers were calling for a halt to the bout as it was obvious that the Mexican warrior Maldonado was only going absorb heavy punishment for the rest of the bout.
Cortez correctly stopped the bout in round 8 with no protest from Maldonado or his camp as Darchinyan acknowledged his cheering fan base in victory.
In defeat , Maldonado conceded that Darchinyan was simply too strong and he couldn’t tell where the awkward champion’s punches were coming from.
The Mexicali native suffered his first defeat in his first world title opportunity, bringing his record to 33-1-1(25KO’s). Vic Darchinyan improved his outstanding knockout ratio and record, remaining
undefeated at 26-0(21KO’s).
With his popularity rising in the boxing world, Darchinyan is looking to fight other title holders and add more belts to his collection, namely WBC “interim” flyweight title holder, Jorge Arce, the ever colorful and popular champion from Los Mochis, Mexico.
That fight has been talked about in boxing circles for some time now and would be a barn-burner while it lasted, but the Aussie-Armenian has his doubts if Arce really wants to tangle with him.
Time will tell.
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