By Ted Sares, photo by Tom Casino/SHOWTIME — Mijares has what I want – the remaining major belts in the 115-pound division. Let’s see how great a matador he really is when he steps inside the ring and goes face-to-face with the Raging Bull. He won’t be yelling ‘Toro!’ He’ll be screaming ‘I surrender! –Vic Darchinyan
Vic Darchinyan unified the championship belts with a dominating performance tonight, as Christian Mijares had no answers for the tough Armenian via Australia. From the opening round when he floored his opponent, Vic controlled the action, dictated the pace and ended matters with a thumping late knock out. He fought an almost perfect fight showing uncommon skills that shocked everyone in the house..
Darchinyan (31-1-1, 24 KOs), won his title after knocking out Dimitri “The Baby” Kirilov in the fifth round in August in spectacular fashion and in a fight where he showed great defensive improvement, exhibiting an effective jab, a fight plan which he followed with disciplined focus, and the ability to close decisively once he had the Russian hurt. The improvement was no fluke as The Raging Bull remarkably showed more technical skills tonight that the highly skilled Mijares, now 35-4-2.
The book said this was a Matador vs. Bull fight, with the “Raging Bull” being the pressure fighter with bricks in his gloves. However, his weird style was thought to be highly vulnerable for such a skilled foe as Mijarest who many thinh has one of the highest ring IQ’s in boxing. But it was not to be as the Bull, showing great ring smarts of his own, gored the Matador. As against ‘The Baby,’ he used his jab effectively and avoided bull rushes and over reaching which have caused him trouble in the past.
Darchinyan may be brazen and cocky, but he can back it up. And he is the last guy you want to get overly macho with in the ring, something that escaped the seemingly overconfident Mijares. Some said (including me) that he does have one thing the Mexican lacks– a punchers chance. But I never thought it would materialize in this explosive manner.
Darchinyan bring electricity into the ring He is now a super star; make no mistake about that.