Conventional wisdom issues a beating

In a few ways Saturday’s fight was closer than scorecards indicated. Then there were all the other ways. Until the middle rounds, the challenger, however hapless his pursuit, had marked the champion’s face substantially. There were also tit-for-tat exchanges that favored him. The challenger’s best cumulative three minutes would have made a 10-8 round. Which left only 10 others to account for.

Saturday night at the Honda Center in Anaheim, super flyweight king Vic Darchinyan dominated former champion Jorge Arce, stopping him after the 11th round – for reasons such as cuts and mercy – while making a first defense of his unified WBC/WBA/IBF title. The stoppage was unsatisfactory to both: Arce wanted to go the distance, and Darchinyan wanted to pound him out of consciousness.

After the fight Arce, pretty lucid for a guy beaten so savagely, said that he wished the final round had happened. Despite a translation of his words that was less than a paraphrase, Arce told Showtime’s interviewer a puncher always has a chance. Yes, and if phenomenology is to be believed this keyboard too has a chance of hopping itself across my office.

But back in the realm of the probable, Arce had less of a chance of stopping Darchinyan in the 12th, had it been allowed to happen, than in any of its 11 predecessors. Much as I admire Arce’s fighting spirit, it was a good, merciful stoppage.

Score one for conventional wisdom. A well-publicized poll last week had about 85 percent of boxing writers picking Darchinyan to win. Glad I wasn’t one of the benighted souls who bucked the crowd. Wait, what? Never mind.

By the time Saturday’s beating was concluded, every impartial observer had Darchinyan ready to score an 11-1 decision in three minutes. So maybe Darchinyan really was better than Arce in a way that exceeded even anomaly’s reach.

Certainly Darchinyan was a better boxer in a way that exceeded Arce’s reach. At least I think that’s what you call it when a fighter puts his head down, tosses his weight over his front foot and wings an overhand lead left about a foot shy of where his opponent had been seconds before. “Reach” is one word for it anyway.

Thirty seconds into Saturday’s match, you got the feeling nothing would go Arce’s way. You also caught yourself wondering: Were blind left hooks that put his chin on a tee what Arce had been throwing at sparring partners for the last eight weeks? And who were these sparring partners? And were any of them southpaws?

Then there was Arce’s regimen of running in the mountains of Mexico. Arce’s legs from Saturday’s fight won’t be scoring any promotional deals from the Mexico City Mountain Runners Association. From the midway point of the very first round Arce had no legs, and his gilded trunks told no lies. The golden sequins set off a detectable shimmer whenever his knees nervously courted one another.

In the telltale sign of a spent fighter, Arce’s recuperative powers ran one-to-one with his rest. That is, while Vic Darchinyan acquired three minutes of energy from each minute between rounds, Arce was lucky if he still had anything but guts in the latter two-thirds of every stanza.

But guts he had. Much was made of David Diaz’s courageous display against Manny Pacquiao last year. More should be made of what Arce did Saturday. He confronted the hardest, most accurate puncher of the lower weight classes, while empty, and stood up to the assault. He took much more than he gave. But he still gave. Arce did not lumber off his stool, hopelessly resigned to defeat. He came off the stool believing that one left-hook/right-cross combination could change everything.

And he suffered greatly for it. Enough cannot be written about what a force Darchinyan has become. He is not sympathetic – you wonder if even his fellow Armenians really like him – but he is thrilling. He is skilled, awkward, spiteful and brave. He is much more than the bully his critics, and promoter, have painted him. Bullies fold when they can’t get their way. Bullies back down when struck in the face. Bullies quit under pressure.

Darchinyan does none of these things.

Malevolence can only take you so far in a prizefight. And “so far” is less than six rounds. Hating another man and trying to make his world painful is exhausting work. The sort of thing that makes your hands heavy and shoulders rubbery. But Darchinyan was fresh as a daisy in the 11th round. Then he was further excited by the large gash opened on the left side of Arce’s face.

Either Darchinyan fought with less spite than promised – keeping a surplus of ill will for the 32-minute mark – or he has a limitless reservoir of contempt. You decide.

Arce’s only progress happened early, in the third round, when he detected a pattern in Darchinyan’s attack. Seeing a man careening towards him, head down and left arm flailing, Darchinyan started taking a step back and snapping a left cross. Arce changed one step to two and made a round of it. But did anyone in Arce’s corner think you could beat a world champion by crossing your feet over while you attacked?

Nope. But that’s all they had. It’s all Arce had. Which is why it’s time for “El Travieso” to call it a career. At only 29 years-old Arce is already about 12 years from his first title defense. Things aren’t going to get better. He needs to forgo his manager’s wisdom: No new trainer, no new weight class, no purple lollipop in lieu of red. Just retire, Jorge, you’ve got plenty of other ways to entertain your fellow Mexicans.

Whither Darchinyan? Anything Vic wants. Promotional pettiness will probably preclude his rematch with Nonito Donaire. But who cares? Darchinyan may not be much fun to listen to, but watching him fight is a heck of a good time.

Bart Barry can be reached at bbarry@15rounds.com