Carving Turkey, The Darchinyan Way

The big talker with the big ego is predicting he'll win the big fight.

He’s telling everyone how he’s going to “demolish, destroy and knock out” the guy he’s scheduled to fight Saturday night at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif.

The big talker is not angry or crazy. He isn’t shouting or swearing and he seldom raises his voice. In fact, he sounds like a guy who is calmly telling you the best way to carve a turkey.

Some of what the big talker says is a little hard to understand, but that’s because he didn’t grow up in Dallas, Chicago or on the tough streets of Brooklyn. Now living in Sydney, Australia, he’s from Armenia, which is a long way from a southern drawl. He speaks English with kind of an Armenian twang. You have to listen closely.

But you don’t have to understand every word to know what he‘s saying. It‘s pretty basic stuff, dealing a lot with knockouts, pain and destroying things. Heavy punches.

Along with the big talk and the big ego, he’s a southpaw with a pretty big punch. And that’s what could decide this fight, the big punch and who lands it first. Or last.

“Knockouts are my style,” said Vic “The Raging Bull” Darchinyan (31-1-1, 25 KOs) on a recent conference call promoting his super-flyweight championship fight on SHOWTIME with Mexico
’s Jorge Arce (51-4-1, 39 KOs). “I believe I can knock out anyone, and Saturday night, you will see a big knockout. No one can stay with me for 12 rounds. I punch too strong. If I catch him, it’s over.“

Darchinyan knows a thing or two about catching things. A few years ago, he caught a Nonito Donaire left hook and it was over. It’s his only loss.

“Everyone keeps bringing up Donaire, but who is Donaire?“ said Darchinyan, who apparently suffered some serious memory loss from the beating. “I want to fight him again in the future and I want to destroy him.“

That’s fine, but like Pinocchio’s nose, Darchinyan’s potential hit list is long,  impressive and still growing. Maybe he can get a rematch with Donaire before he fights Manny Pacquiao (“I want to move up and fight Pacquiao, but I will take my time“) or right after he faces super-bantamweight contender Israel Vazquez (“he gave me great sparring but I‘m confident I will defeat him if we fight“). He’s also got his eye on WBO super-flyweight champ Fernando Montiel.

  It’s smart to plan your future, to look ahead, but Darchinyan still has to deal with Arce on Saturday night, a guy he says he dislikes.

“I am going to slow him down and punish him every round,“ Darchinyan said. “I’m going to play20with him like a cat plays with a mouse and show him how dumb he is. I want to thank his management because they don’t want him any more. They just want to write him off after the loss.“

Asked if he might be underestimating Arce a little, Darchinyan said he never underestimates an opponent. He just never shows them any respect.

“I believe any opponent I fight, I will dominate and destroy,” he said. “I believe I will knock (Arce) out, but I won’t knock him out in one round. That would be too easy for him. I am going to demolish him, destroy him and knock him out. He’s  going to remember me all his life.”

He’s probably right. You can be pretty sure Darchinyan is going to remember Donaire all his life.

“Arce is a good puncher,” Darchinyan said. “He’s had good knockouts. But I am going to play him like a baby.”

Darchinyan doesn’t do a lot of tiptoeing around. He stomps. And say what you want about the guy, you’d want him covering your back in a street fight.

And if he mouths off a little, maybe he’s earned the right to put a little swagger in his walk. In the biggest win of his career, he upset reigning super-flyweight champion Cristian Mijares, stopping him in nine rounds this past November to win the WBA and WBC belts.

Not many figured Darchinyan had a chance against Mijares, who has already beaten Arce. In a prediction poll, 25 out of 31 members of the media picked Mijares to win. The six who picked Darchinyan included Darius Ortiz of ESPN.com., who also picked the round.

“When I fought Mijares, I told him what I was going to do to him,” Darchinyan said. “I told him I was going to break him down, that I was going to smash him and destroy him and knock him out. And I did.”

A man of his word.

“Watch carefully from the first round,” Darchinyan said of his fight with Arce. “I don’t want you to miss any of my artwork and my punches.“

Should be a big night.