By Allan Fox: 39-year-old former two division world champion Vic Darchinyan (39-7-1, 28 KOs) will be fighting this Saturday night on February 7th against 23-year-old Mexican fighter Juan Jimenez (19-8, 12 KOs) in a scheduled 10 round bout at the Domo del Palacio Municipal, Chetumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico.
There’s little question that Darchinyan will beat up and stop Jimenez in their fight this Saturday. Darchinyan is well above Jimenez in the talent department. This is just a record-padding fight for Darchinyan and not meant to be a competitive one.
If Jimenez is able to give Darchyinyan problems in this fight then it’ll definitely be a sign that the Armenian fighter needs to seriously consider retiring from boxing because he shouldn’t have to struggle to beat a guy at this level.
Darchinyan hasn’t fought since losing by a 5th round knockout to WBA World featherweight champion Nicholas Walters last year in May. For Darchinyan, that was his second consecutive knockout loss. He was stopped in the 9th round by Nonito Donaire in November of 2013.
At this point in Darchinyan’s career it’s hard to understand what he’s trying to accomplish. At 5’5 1/2,” Darchinyan doesn’t have the size to compete against the best fighters at featherweight. They’re all far too big for him in this weight class, and it would be a massacre for Darchinyan to face the likes of Jhonny Gonzalez, Walters, Evgeny Gradovich and Vasyl Lomachenko.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTafDqQH5Fg
The logical move would be for Darchinyan to move back down to super flyweight and try to recapture a title in this weight class. The money might not be as good as it’s been at bantamweight, super bantamweight and featherweight for Darchinyan, but at this point in his career it’s doubtful that he can still get big fights in those weight classes. Darchinyan has been beaten too many times recently with him losing 4 out of his last 6 fights. Darchinyan can stay at featherweight, but he’s likely to continue to lose badly every time he steps it up a class.
Darchinyan, who started his career as a flyweight, hasn’t impressed since moving up from the super featherweight division to fight at bantamweight against Joseph Agbeko in 2009. Darchinyan lost the fight to Agbeko. But instead of moving back down to super flyweight where Darchinyan he’d been dominating, he stayed at bantamweight. Darchinyan was subsequently beaten by Abner Mares, Anselmo Moreno and Shinsuke Yamanaka at bantamweight.
At flyweight and super flyweight, Darchinyan was close to unbeatable in those weight classes. He was beaten by Donaire, but the Filipino fighter quickly moved up in weight and that left Darchinyan without any real threats in those weight classes.
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