http://news.theage.com.au/sport/darchin ... -5gy0.html
Darchinyan joins lucrative fight club
November 3, 2008 - 7:39PM
Vic Darchinyan has smashed his way into boxing's million dollar fight club.
The Sydney-based brawler's world-title unification demolition of Mexican glamour boy Cristian Mijares in Los Angeles on Sunday has two of America's big-paying TV networks, ESPN and Showtime, clamouring to broadcast his next fight.
They see him as a marketing dream.
Inside the ring Darchinyan is a knockout specialist providing all-action bouts and outside he is equally vicious, generating plenty of headlines by trash-talking his opponents.
Darchinyan, after a late night of celebrations at an LA restaurant with 200 friends and family, says he will return to the ring in March with a super fight organised by his American promoter, Gary Shaw, and Australian manager, Elias Nasser.
His criteria for opponents is simple.
Darchinyan wants to stock his trophy cabinet with as many world-title belts he can get his powerful hands on and is willing to climb to higher weight divisions.
"I will only fight champions," Darchinyan told AAP.
"If they have a belt I want them."
Darchinyan's ninth round knockout of Mijares gave him ownership of the World Boxing Council, World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation super fly-weight belts, but defending the titles against mandatory defences is not his priority.
Money and belts are.
"Every fight from here on is going to be a very big payday," Nasser, who spoke with Showtime and ESPN executives after the bout, said.
"We're in seven figures a fight now."
The only major belt in the super fly-weight division Darchinyan does not own is the World Boxing Organisation title and he said he was keen to take on WBO champ, Mexican Fernando Montiel.
After crushing Mijares, Darchinyan stood in the ring and called out boxing's biggest payday, Oscar De La Hoya, whose opponents earn up to $US15 million ($A22.3 million) to show up in the ring.
Nasser said another fighter Darchinyan was keen to fight was an equally prolific trash-talker, Mexico's Jorge Arce, who has dodged Darchinyan for years.
"I want to rest until the end of the year and from January I'll go back to my gym and start training," Darchinyan said.
"My manager will start working on the next fight this week.
"I only want to fight for the world title.
"I don't want to defend.
"If any world champion wants to fight me, I am ready."
Stepping up several weight divisions is not a deterrent to Darchinyan because the only sparring partners willing to work with him are larger fighters, including Australian welterweight Lovemore N'Dou.
"Vic knocks out all of the sparring partners near his weight class so he's used to sparring the bigger guys like Lovemore," Nasser said.
Darchinyan is scheduled to arrive back in Sydney on Wednesday morning
