Darchinyan: Like Toney (Without The Chin?)

It’s a heavyweight mouth on a horse jockey’s body. He’s James “Lights Out” Toney as a super-flyweight.

If Vic “The Raging Bull” Darchinyan fights half as well as he trash talks, the IBF super-flyweight champ will be wearing three belts when he catches a plane home next month.

But don’t bet on it.

Darchinyan is one of those guys you don’t have to coax or prod if you want him to open up. He doesn’t need to come out of his shell. Broke out of it long ago. He’s Toney without the shouting and the extra 100 pounds. And maybe without the chin.

The IBF super-flyweight champ from Armenia,  Darchinyan (30-1, 24 KOs) will be fighting Mexico’s Cristian Mijares (36-3, 15 KOs) on Nov. 1 for the WBC and WBA belts, which belong to Mijares. The three-belt unification fight will be held at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif. and will be televised on SHOWTIME.

The fight will be between opposites. While Darchinyan makes bold threats, Mijares sounds like the kid you want your daughter to date or your son to be best friends with. Polite and well-spoken, he never got out of character on a conference call this week headlined by the tough talk and threats of Darchinyan.

“I have no bad blood toward Darchinyan, he’s the one doing all the talking,” Mijares said quietly. “He’s not my enemy, he’s my opponent. He’s my rival. I have no bad blood toward him. I have no animosity toward him. He just likes to talk too much, but I like that. It makes the fight more interesting for me. Words won‘t prove anything.”

Hey Cris. Wanna meet my daughter?

Give this much to Darchinyan. He trash talks without raising his voice and without obscenities. He’s cool and calm, like a professional hit man. If you didn‘t understand what he was saying, you would think he was talking about his favorite movie.

But what the IBF champ is saying is that he’s going to “destroy” Mijares. And if you didn’t hear him say it the first time, you probably heard him say it the second time. And the third time. And the fourth time. And the ….well, you get the idea.

Just to keep from being too repetitive, Darchinyan also said he was going to prove (Mijares) is “nothing,“ and he is going to “knock him out,” and “make him feel like a stupid fighter.”  He was also going to “damage” Mijares and “finish him” and “break him in half.”

Sounds like a rough night for Mijares if talk counts for anything.

“You‘ll see I‘m going to be delivering everything I’m saying,” said Darchinyan, whose only loss came from a crushing left hook by Nonito Donaire last year in the fifth round of their IBF flyweight title fight. “After two rounds, you’re not going to hear any Mexican crowd. You’re just going to see and hear the Armenian crowd. And after two rounds, you’re going to see the Mexican crowd even supporting me.”

Speaking pretty good English, Darchinyan said he just wished Mijares’ corner wouldn’t be allowed to throw in the towel. He’s wants the beating to last for awhile. Drag out the brutal ending.

“You’re going to see very big punishment,” he said. “He’s going to be punished badly. I believe he’s not going to fight after this fight for a couple years.”

It wasn’t all bad. Darchinyan revealed a moment of compassion for Mijares.

“He’s young,” he said. “He can come back after a couple of years.”

The promoters in this fight also had some complimentary things to say.

“Cristian shut up one of the biggest mouths ever at 115 pounds, in Mr. (Jorge) Arce,” said Mijares promoter, Lou DiBella. “And I think now he’s going to shut up one of the biggest mouths in all of the lower weight classes.”

Darchinyan might want to think twice about tweaking the lion’s whiskers. DiBella, who has promoted some pretty good fighters, including Bernard Hopkins, said Mijares has the potential to be the best pound-for-pound fighter he’s ever worked with.

Gary Shaw, who promotes Darchinyan, said this was going to be a fight between a puncher (Mijares) and a boxer (Mijares).

“We’ll see,” he said. “One of them will give in first and go to plan B. I don’t know which fighter that will be.”

I’m guessing it will be the loser.