BRIDGEPORT, Conn.-- In the co-feature, Nonito Donaire shocked Vic Darchinyan with a thunderous left hook to score a fifth-round TKO and win the IBF flyweight title. Donaire, a little-known Filipino, had given the Australian-based Armenian champion his share of trouble over the first four rounds (we had the bout dead level going into the fifth, as did two of the ringside judges), and then early in the fifth Darchinyan got hit what may have been the best punch Donaire ever threw.
Darchinyan went straight down, and when he attempted to arise he went staggering across the ring and fell, face-first, into the ring ropes, at which point, a minute 38 seconds into the fifth, referee Eddie Claudio signaled the fight at an end.
“I said before the fight one punch could make the difference between me and him,” said Donaire afterward. “I came in here as an underdog, and nobody believed in me, but I did it!”
“I got caught with a great punch,” said a rueful Darchinyan. “It happens in boxing.
“I’m okay, but, obviously, I’m very disappointed,” added Darchinyan, who voiced his desire for a rematch.
It was the first career loss for Darchinyan, now 28-1, while Donaire (18-1) avenged his older brother Glenn’s technical loss to Darchinyan at the Mandalay Bay last year.
“My brother told me,” said Nonito, “that (Darchinyan) wasn’t as tough as he thinks he is.”
At the bout’s conclusion, incidentally, the Connecticut commission somewhat bizarrely included judge’s totals for the fifth round, which never was completed.
That would have been strange enough, but according to the official scorecard, Steve Epstein, the judge who had scored the first four rounds for Donaire, scored the fifth – a round in which Darchinyan was left for dead – 10-9.
There’s probably a good explanation somewhere.
