Boxing Breakdown: Joseph Agebeko vs Vic Darchinyan

Armenian born Australian citizen and reigning undisputed Junior Bantamweight champion Vic Darchinyan looks to equal Jeff Fenechs triple world crown tomorrow when he takes on IBF Bantamweight champion Joseph Agebeko of Ghana. Agebeko has been a professional for ten years, although he’s only recently started fighting on the world scene. He dropped a 12 round decision to WBA champion Wladimir Siderenko in 2004 before taking nearly three years off. Since his comeback, ‘King Kong’ has won four fights including winning his title and making his initial defence of it. Agebeko battered Luis Perez in 2007 before edging William Gonzalez last December.

Darchinyan is slowly becoming one of the bigger names in boxing. His trash talking draws a line between fans and haters and that combined with his take no prisoners style of fighting makes him someone to take notice of. Darchinyan won his first title in 2004 with an 11th round stoppage over Irene Pacheco for the IBF Flyweight title. After making six defences of that belt, he was stopped by Nonito Donaire in five rounds in one of the biggest upsets in recent years. Redemption for ‘The Raging Bull’ came last year as he destroyed both Dimirti Kirilov for the IBF title and then unified with pound for pound ranked Cristian Mijares by one sided knockout to become the first unified 115lb champion. He has since defended the title with an 11th round stoppage over Jorge Arce.

I like Vic in this fight and I think it’ll be one sided with the only thing worth arguing about is when Vic ends it. Agebeko’s way too inactive and he’ll need to be at his absolute sharpest to handle Vic and I also think Vic will need to have an off night. The guys that will trouble Darchinyan will be good movers who can make him miss and Agebeko doesn’t fit that description. It’ll probably be a good fight for a round or two but then Darchinyan takes over and starts letting those machine gun like assaults off in battering Agebeko into about a 10th round knockout.

Also in action this weekend, Lightweight contender Tony DeMarco takes on Anges Adjaho in the co feature. Former IBF Cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham meets former WBC Cruiserweight champiojn Wayne Braithwaite in an untelevised fight on the Darchinyan undercard. The winner will take on Tomasz Adamek, who’ll likely defeat Bobby Gunn in a defence of his Cruiserweight title. WBA Middleweight champion Felix Sturm defends against dangerous contender Khoren Gevor.