Light-weight IBF and IBO world boxing champion Vakhtang Darchinyan is currently in Armenia and met with students and professors of the Yerevan State University on June 28.
Vakhtang, who Armenian boxing fans see on their television sets, is not the same outside the ring. He turns modest once out of the ring, while he is aggressive and at times cruel. He confesses that in the ring, he treats his opponents as if they are his enemies because “if I don’t hit them, they’ll hit me and then I will really get angry.”
Vakhtang goes out into the ring under the music of Ara Gevorgyan and carries the Armenian and Australian flags. He says that he’s not able to sign many big deals because he comes out to the ring with the Armenian flag, but he doesn’t really pay attention to that.
Some Armenian compatriots feel sad when they see Armenian boxers change their last names or take out the “yan” of the last name. Vakhtang hasn’t changed his last name, but he is known as Vick abroad.
“I haven’t changed my last name. It’s just hard for foreigners to pronouce my name and sometimes funny,” says the world champion.
As president of the pension fund Vazgen Khachikyan said during the meeting, Vakhtang loves it when he sees that his biography states Kirovakan (current Vanadzor), “Third Neighborhood” as his birthplace. He says the following to the people of the Lori region honestly and stays true to his birthplace.
“I am from Kirovakan, Aparan and Spitak.”
Vakhtang made it to the big rings back in 2000. Since then, he has participated in 26 boxing matches and won all of them. In fact, he won 21 of them with a knockdown. He is already 30 years old, but he’s not thinking about leaving boxing because that is a very young age to leave. Vakhtang started boxing when he was seven with the intention of becoming a world champion boxer.
“I felt that I was strong even when I was little. Besides that, I like to fight,” he says.
Vakhtang is known as “ferocious bull” in the sport world, but he also has another nickname, which he didn’t mention during the meeting-“sniper”. He was given the nickname “sniper” because he moves his right hand in circles as if he is aiming and then hits with his left. He has knocked down boxers who have never lost a match with his left. Vakhtang is only sad that he still hasn’t boxed with a Turk or an Azerbaijani so that he could beat him as much as he could.
He had that pleasure when he was boxing for fun, but that didn’t last long-his opponent was knocked out after the first round.
Darchinyan hasn’t won the Olympic gold for non-professional boxing. According to him ,the reason for that is that there was not enough time and you can’t really show yourself. The professional ring gives you many opportunities and generally, Vakhtang’s opponents find themselves laying on the floor after the sixth round.
There is obviously more stress here, but Vakhtang knows how to deal with that.
“I am forced to gain 16-18 pounds before each match. When I step in the ring and see my opponent, my hands start to itch. I say to myself ‘I had to gain this much weight for you, now watch me…”.
It is worth mentioning that in order to be declared absolute world champion, Vakhtang must get WBO and WBC belts. Mexican Jorge Arse currently has the WBC belt and Vakhtang has challenged him. However, Jorge is afraid to box with him at the moment. The Armenian boxer will go out in the ring to box with Argentinian WBO champion Omar Narvayes in the beginning of September. Narvayes hasn’t lost a match until now, but Vakhtang is certain that he will knock him out and will come back to Armenia with three belts.
Speaking of coming back to Armenia…Vakhtang is currently a citizen of Australia and believes that he must keep in touch with Australia even after he ends his boxing career because that way he can help develop boxing in Armenia.
“I might be in Armenia part of the year and spend the rest of the year in Australia,” says Vakhtang. Although the lifestlyle of Australians differs from Armenians’ lifestyle, Armenians don’t forget about our customs there either. For example, Yurik Sargsyan, who is one of Vakhtang’s friends and former weightlifter, invites Vakhtang over to his house for lamb barbecue sometimes.
“I call and tell him to come because I’m going to prepare lamb, even though it’s forbidden to do that in Australia and I might go to jail for that.”
But what kind of an Armenian doesn’t know how to talk his way out of it with the police for something like that?
“One time the police found out that Yurik had killed a lamb. They went to his house and he made the police drink so much that they forgot to take their guns with them when they were leaving,” says Vakhtang proudly.
At the end of the meeting, rector of the Yerevan State University Aram Simonyan awarded Vakhtang Darchinyan with a gold medal, a watch and some books. Reading is fundamental, but we Armenians hope that Vakhtang will start reading those books after he ends his boxing career. Until then, let him do what he does best and knockout his opponents.