The rematch between Victor Ortiz and Andre Berto is being targeted for June 30.
Is Darchinyan being dissed?
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Shaw pointed to the fact that Darchinyan isn't on THE RING's Top 10 pound-for-pound list and espn.com has him at No. 19. Is Darchinyan being dissed? The Armenian, who defends his unified junior bantamweight title against Jorge Arce on Saturday in Anaheim, Calif., is 31-1-1, with 25 knockouts. Without question, he’s one of the biggest-punching little men in recent memory. The problem is that the loss and the draw came in his last five fights. He was knocked out by Nonito Donaire with one punch on July 7, 2007 and drew with Z Gorres two fights later, on Feb. 2 of last year. Darchinyan made a huge statement with his spectacular ninth-round knockout of favored Cristian Mijares on Nov. 1 of last year. However, even an epic performance doesn’t catapult a fighter into the pound-for-pound category after he was stopped by one punch only four fights earlier. Now, if he beats Arce, goes up in weight and takes out more big-name fighters (Israel Vasquez? Rafael Marquez?), there’s no reason to believe he couldn’t be considered one of the 10 best fighters in the world. He’s that talented. The most-direct way to put the knockout loss behind him would be to avenge it. However, Shaw has said he would never allow it because Donaire bolted from his promotional firm. Michael Rosenthal can be reached at theringeditor@yahoo.com |
