By Scott Gilfoid: WBA/WBC super flyweight champion Cristian Mijares (36-4-2, 15 KOs) was no match for IBF super flyweight champion Vic Darchinyan (31-1-1, 25 KOs) who dropped him twice en route to stopping him in the 9th round of a unification bout at the Home Depot Center, in Carson, California. Darchinyan, 32, using power punching an a surprising speed advantage, knocked Mijares down with a devastating left uppercut at the end of the 1st round. Mijares got up and survived the round, which ended shortly thereafter, luckily for him.

However, Mijares never seemed to recover from the shot as he would continue to have huge problems with the power, speed and the unorthodox fighting style of the Armenian Darchinyan. In the 9th round, Darchinyan again hurt Mijares, hitting him with a flurry of shots, and then putting him down with two left hands to the head. The fight was then stopped by referee Lou Moret.

Mijares, 27, more of a boxer than any kind of puncher, seemed to fight slightly better in the 2nd round, landing some nice jabs. However, he continued to try and slug with Darchinyan, and got far the worst of it. Rather than using his reach against Darchinyan, Mijares seemed to be trying to prove a point that he could trade with the harder punching Darchinyan, and was taking a pounding because of it.

Even when the fighting was at a distance, Darchinyan was able to rush forward close the distance rapidly to land hard left hands to the head of Mijares before he had time to react to it. Unlike Nonito Donaire, who was able to time Darchinyan and hurt him with a left hook as he came in, Mijares had no weaponry to pick Darchinyan off as he came rushing forward for his aggressive attacks. By the 3rd round, the right eye of Mijares began to show signs of swelling, and his face was reddened from the hard punches he was eating.

Darchinyan was proving to be a much tougher opponent than the ones that Mijares had fought recently, like Jorge Arce, who Mijares gave a boxing lesson to in defeating him by a one-sided 12-round decision in April 2007. That fight essentially put Mijares on the boxing map, making a name for him in the process. However, Darchinyan was a class above Arce in terms of punching power, and Mijares clearly wasn’t ready to face the kind of power that Darchinyan was hitting him with. The 4th round was fairly close, as Mijares landed some good double hooks to the head of Darchinyan.

However, in the last minute of the round, Darchinyan came on strong, rushing at Mijares and landing hard shots to the head to take the round. In rounds five and sixth, Darchinyan completely dominated the action with his power punching and faster hands. Mijares, for the most part, did absolutely nothing in both rounds other than absorbing a lot of punishment. In the 7th round, Darchinyan appeared to be tiring out as Mijares landed well in the first half of the round. However, in the second half, Darchinyan attacked him like a wild animal, easily dominating him just as he did in the six prior rounds.

In the 8th round, Darchinyan blasted Mijares with power shots, and it became clear then that Mijares probably wasn’t going to be able to take much more punishment without the fight being stopped. He needed a knockout to win, yet didn’t have the kind of power required to accomplish this against the much bigger punching Darchinyan.

In the 9th round, after Mijares hit Darchinyan with a good left hand, the Armenian went after him with a flurry of punches, hurting Mijares badly as he tried to cover up. Incredibly, he remained standing despite getting hit with an enormous amount of head shots. Mijares then tried to retreat to the ropes, but Darchinyan chased after him, landing two powerful left hands that sent Mijares to the canvas for the final time.