7/7/07 BOXING VIDEO ROUNDUP FEATURE

Posted on | July 9, 2007 | 1 Comment

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DONAIRE VS. DARCHINYAN

Nonito Donaire (18-1, 11 KO’s) took charge from the outset against a cocky, sore losing Vic Darchinyan (28-1, 22 KO’s) Saturday night, handing the Armenian Australian fighter his first loss as a professional. Darchinyan, who boxes with his elbows out to his sides and often teases and baits his opponents to get them to creep into his danger zone, never looked like he had a chance in the match. Donaire absolutely picked him apart, using a longer reach, a phenomenal straight right, and a faster pace to frustrate his opponent until the inevitable occured. His brother, who had his jaw broken by Darchinyan in their fight last year, helped Nonito develop the necessary overpowering strategy it took to exact the family some revenge. The elder Donaire was bolstered by his weight advantage from coming down to fight at 112 pounds instead of his usual 115 pounds.

Though two judges had Darchinyan deadlocked with Donaire at the time of the fifth-round KO, anyone else watching could see Darchinyan’s belts in jeopardy from the opening minute of the first round until the brutal left hook that turned the vaunted bully into a stumbling sissy. Donaire danced away from every spot of trouble, cut Darchinyan early in the fight, and never fell into the traps Darchinyan set. Known for hypnotizing his previous opponents with methodical, deliberately slow movements followed up by swift, out of the blue blasts of sudden power, Darchinyan usually seizes the advantage because it is so awkward for a fighter to get around that unorthodox southpaw style.

Saturday night Donaire found a way to avoid Darchinyan’s lumbering advances and made the champion pay every time he tried to get cute. At one point Darchinyan dropped his guard and gave Donaire a clear shot at his face. Donaire wasted no time making him pay for his bravado. The risky maneuver backfired on Darchinyan, and his eyes glazed over after the resulting counter punches to the face from Donaire. It was the turning point of the fight, as Darchinyan suddenly betrayed an inkling of intimidation, the likes of which he’d probably never felt before. He grew more and more cautious as the fight went on into the fifth and final round. Loading up too long for each punch and getting clobbered by the patient, well-planned attack of his opponent, Darchinyan could never get into any kind of offensive rhythm. Every time he did land a decent shot, Donaire simply shook it off and kept firing jabs and straight rights. The speedy, snappy, and sporadic left hooks Donaire threw were not always accurate, but Darchinyan was simply begging for one to catch him off guard. Finally, one did.

Darchinyan waded in and went to throw one of his patented underhanded uppercuts to the body and dropped his right hand to his waist. Leaving his face an open target in the process, he also telegraphed what he was about to do by contorting his face into an angry grimace as he threw what would be his last punch of the night. It never hit home, because Donaire simply sat back and executed the most magnificent short left hook at the most magical moment possible.

As soon as that hook connected, all the strength leaked out of Darchinyan’s legs. He fell to the canvas as a clot of thick blood and mucus dribbled from his nostrils. For the first time in his professional career, Darchinyan was absolutely out of it. He propped himself up on all fours and tried to stand up too fast, finding his equlibrium completely out of whack once he reached his feet. He wound up swimming toward the ropes in mid air, hoping he could somehow recover before being counted out on his feet. One look into his clueless eyes from the referee led to the immediate stoppage. Darchinyan barely had the time or energy to protest. Moments laters a small crowd that included the ringside medical staff laid the former champ down on the canvas and nursed him back to complete consciousness. Though they brought a back board in to carry him out, Darchinyan’s ego simply wouldn’t allow him to suffer that kind of humiliation. He soon regained his composure and walked in on Donaire’s post-fight interview to jabber at the new champ about a rematch.

The way this fight ended gave a tremendous boost to all true boxing fans yearning for the sport to turn itself around. A virtual unknown having fought nobody of note in his entire career came in and manhandled a flyweight fighter hailed as having the kind of reputation Mike Tyson once carried in the sport. Vic Darchinyan lost to a guy coming off a win against a boxer with a 5-9 record. He had successfully defended his IBO and IBF Flyweight titles six times in a little more than two years, each time facing formidable opponents with phenomenal records. Darchinyan won the IBF title against a 30-0 Irene Pacheco in December of 2004 and also gave Luis Maldonado the first blemish on his undefeated 33-0-1 record when the two battled in June of 2006.

Darchinyan stood across from the man who took his belts in complete and utter shock, still unsure of what the heck just happened to him, begging for a rematch and doubting the referee’s decision to save him from an even more brutal beating if the fight had continued. It was just the kind of ending that any Hollywood producer would salivate over if he saw it in a script. Donaire stood there staring and grinning at Darchinyan like Daniel in The Karate Kid after just pulling off the big finish with the Crane kick to win the tournament. Older brother Glenn Donaire had prepared Nonito by having him paint the fence and the house, sand the deck, and wax the cars. All that practice paid off, and the vanquished villain had to stand there in the end and listen to the hero tell him he’d have to think about whether or not to give him another chance to win back his cherished hardware.

Darchinyan finally departed for the locker room with the help of his entourage and without those big, heavy, gold plated symbols of his years of dominance in the division. It’s been a long time since a flyweight fight garnered so much attention and such an amazing, unpredictable finish. It’s been even longer since a man so humble, grateful, and soft spoken carried the weight of two world titles on his shoulder and around his waist. If underdogs like Donaire can come in and compete like that more often, boxing will be well on the way to recovery. If more men of his caliber can ascend to the same level, champions in the sport will once again be looked upon with the kind of respect and admiration the legends of old once commanded. Congratulations to Nonito Donaire for living the impossible dream.

DARCHINYAN VS. DONAIRE HIGHLIGHTS:

SIMMS VS. ALCINE

Travis Simms (25-1, 19 KO’s) followed Darchinyan’s lead in Showtime’s main event fight against Joachim Alcine (29-0, 18 KO’s), but Simms at least went the distance in losing by a 15-point margin in a 12-round battle against the speedy Haitian-born Canadian. Simms held the WBA title for just six months and a day after coming out of a long layoff to reclaim it. Jose Antonio Rivera did his best to battle the eager, overpowering Simms in that January match-up, but in the end Simms beat him to a bloody pulp, forcing the former champ to contemplate retirement.

Saturday night, Alcine was the one doing the beating, although it wasn’t nearly as brutal and bruising for Simms as it was for Rivera. Simms soon found out how rusty he really was from spending over two years in obscurity away from the ring. Alcine’s lightning fast reflexes, stellar jab, and fierce combinations left Simms outgunned and outclassed through the latter rounds of the fight, only showing fleeting, rare flashes of excellence. After the fight he complained of an injured hand and a slip that was ruled a knockdown. Still, he gave due credit to the new champ.

“I take my hat off to Alcine. No excuses just congratulations to him. I’ll be back. He fought a good fight. Tonight was his night. I didn’t underestimate him,” said Simms after the tough loss. Again, the loser immediately downplayed the validity of his defeat and called for a quick rematch while the winner lamented about how much tougher he thought the fight would be and how the heavy hitting champ did not live up to his billing.

“He’s not a bad boxer but I thought he was a bigger puncher. I tasted his power early and knew it wouldn’t be a problem for me in the fight,” said Alcine about the way he made the fight so one-sided in the end.

It’s a well-known fact that speed kills, and regardless of whether Simms’ gripes were genuine or imagined he came up short trying to live up to all the unreal expectations. He was a whole lot less than “Tremendous” and clearly revealed what two years off can do to a championship caliber fighter. Not to say that beating Rivera was a fluke or Rivera was that much weaker than Alcine. The truth is, Travis Simms should have paced himself before waltzing right back into the spotlight and trying to reclaim and retain his old hardware. Like all fighters making a comeback, it takes time, and Simms simply hasn’t had enough to adjust yet.

At the same time, nobody can argue that Alcine is a slouch or that Simms could have easily beat him with a healthy hand and a more observant referee. The adopted Canuck put the whole package together and showed why he’s well on his way to a Hall of Fame career that may even end with a zero in the loss column if he keeps up the same pace and doesn’t suffer any serious injuries of his own. It’s not out of the realm of possibility to imagine him compiling 50 wins before hanging up the gloves.

Like Donaire’s win, Alcine’s belt-driven performance could prove to be a big boost for boxing. With Alcine’s character and composure, he could definitely unify the titles at 154 pounds if he continues to push himself. Put him in against the other title holders, and we may get one or two fights that could rival Hearns and Hagler if we’re lucky.

SIMMS vs. ALCINE HIGHLIGHTS

Lamon Brewster (33-4, 29 KO’s) was the one guy who couldn’t live up to the role of the upstart underdog Saturday night. He looked like Fat albert trying to fight The Incredible Hulk. I honestly don’t think he landed anything that even made Wladimir Klitschko (49-3, 44 KO’s) blink. The only thing that stopped Brewster from devouring a complete seven course meal of snappy jabs and stiff straight rights was the compassion of his own trainer: the venerable Buddy McGirt.

Klitschko is the great white heavyweight hope for title unification, but the time for tune up bouts is long past him. He knew coming in that Brewster was a shell of the man who scored a TKO against him in their last meeting. Yet, he still made this fight happen and made a big deal of it as if “Dr. Steelhammer” really had something to prove at this point against any fighter who doesn’t currently hold a belt. If he’s going to prove anything in any rematch, at this point it would only be done by facing Sam Peter again. “The Nigerian Nightmare” might just give him fits if they go at it again, and he’s honestly the only man out there I see as able to even rattle Klitschko at this juncture in his stellar career.

I can think of five or six better men Klitschko could have picked to test himself, but he decided to be the only party pooper Saturday night by embarassing a man for no good reason at all and giving fight fans the only totally predictable outcome of the night. I feel bad for any moron who made a bet for Brewster to win. With every thudding jab that connected I winced myself, and I couldn’t help but feel for Brewster. He just wasn’t built to battle a man like that. Klitschko has finally learned to maximize his reach and fight with his jab as his exclusive money punch, only following up with the right when it was totally wide open for the taking. Transitioning seamlessly from power to quick jabs, he made a fool of Brewster, and we all watched it wondering where Brewster’s olf fire went until Buddy stepped in and did the right and merciful thing.

Never has a trainer lived up to his first name more than Saturday night. McGirt gave Brewster a couple taps on the cheek to let him know it was over and there was no point in making it any worse, and just like that the heavyweight division produced yet another fight that made every fight fan long to return to the old days. Yup, the old time days with a primed and uncorrupted Tyson, who would have negated Klitschko’s jab by Peekabooing the crap out of him and hitting him on the inside with uppercuts and hooks.

Alas, the old days are gone and we live our lives as heavyweight fans in a perpetual Rocky IV movie that’s got the script written wrong so the Russian always wins.

IF YOU CAN BEAR TO WATCH IT AGAIN HERE’S THE END OF THE FIGHT

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