By Jim Dower: International Boxing Federation bantamweight champion Joseph Agbeko (27-1, 22 KO’s) defeated challenger Vic Darchinyan tonight by a 12-round unanimous decision tonight at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida. The final judges’ scores were 116-111, 114-113 and 114-113. Darchinyan, 33, who was moving up from the super flyweight division, seemed to bite off a little more than he could chew by moving up in weight to take on Agbeko.
Unlike in his last several fights in which Darchinyan has had the power and size advantage over his opponents, he wasn’t able to dominate Agbeko with his power shots tonight. Indeed, Agbeko took his shots and answered back with his own big punches all night long, getting the better of Darchinyan in most of the exchanges.
Agbeko dominated the fight up until the 7th round when Darchinyan began to get aggressive and start taking the fight to him. In the 7th round, Darchinyan knocked Agbeko with a left hand. The referee, however, missed the shove that Darchinyan gave that resulted in Agbeko being knocked to the canvas. But Darchinyan then took over the fight as if it was an authentic knockdown, taking the fight to Agbeko and punishing him with big left hands.
Agbeko looked to be fading from the 7th round until the end of the fight. With the fight in the balance, Agbeko opened up another cut over Darchinyan’s eyes, this one on the right side in the 11th. The cut seemed to unnerve Darchinyan, who came out in the 12th round fighting passively as if his thoughts were on the cut rather than on trying to blast out Agbeko like he had been doing in the five previous rounds.
This allowed Agbeko to control the final round and squeeze out a narrow decision. I think Darchinyan could have won this fight had he fought as aggressively in the 1st half of the bout than he had in the 2nd. I think Darchinyan made the mistake of fighting scared in the first six rounds, giving Agbeko too much respect and not rushing him like Darchinyan does against most of his opponents.
Although Darchinyan was previously stopped by Nonito Donaire who took advantage of Darchinyan’s wild charging attacks to stop him with a right hook in the 5th round. Agbeko didn’t have a big right or left hook in his arsenal and didn’t have the weaponry to punish or hurt Darchinyan like Donaire did.
All Darchinyan had to worry about from Agbeko was his fight hand, which he was getting hit with over and over again anyway throughout the fight. Darchinyan took the shots and wasn’t really hurt by his shots. This is why when Darchinyan finally started fighting like his old self starting in the 7th round, he was able to find a lot of success.
It seems that Darchinyan used the wrong strategy in this fight and should have stuck with what has worked for him since turning pro instead of over-thinking it and fighting too cautiously. Darchinyan could have won this fight without too many problems if he had attacked him the way he does all his opponents by charging forward rather than sitting back and pecking away at him with one punch at a time.
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