Saturday, July 11, 2009, From
the BankAtlantic Center, Sunrise, Fla.,
SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING
(9 p.m. ET/PT)
**If you would like to hear the conference call in its entirety, the numbers
are **
Playback
Instructions:
U.S. Toll Free:
800-355-2355
International:
402-220-2946
Playback Passcode:
55226#
(The playback
will be until the day of the fight)
Two of the hardest-hitting boxers
in the world participated in a media conference call Tuesday to discuss their
upcoming world title fight on Saturday, July 11, live on SHOWTIME
at 9 p.m. ET/PT (delayed on the west coast) from the BankAtlantic
Center in Sunrise, Fla.
IBF Bantamweight champion
Joseph “King Kong” Agbeko and two division world champion
Vic “Raging Bull” Darchinyan both possess eye-popping
knockout percentages. Agbeko (26-1, 22 KOs) of Accra,
Ghana, now fighting out of Bronx, N.Y., has knocked out more than 81 percent
of his opponents while Darchinyan (32-1, 26 KOs), of Sydney, Australia, by way
of Armenia, is right behind him at 76 percent.
Darchinyan, an Aussie bomber who
is a four-time world champion at flyweight and super flyweight, will leave his
IBF, WBC and WBA titles at 115 pounds behind to move up to the 118-pound limit
to face the dangerous Agbeko. If victorious, Darchinyan
will become a three-division world champion.
The co-feature
pits two top-10 ranked 135-pound contenders in the biggest fight of their
lives when
Antonio DeMarco
(21-1-1, 15 KOs), of Tijuana, Mexico, takes on West African native Anges “Baby
Face” Adjaho (25-1, 14 KOs) in a 10-round bout.
The event is promoted by
Don King Productions in association with BankAtlantic
Center.
Agbeko vs. Darchinyan and DeMarco
vs. Adjaho are co-promoted with Gary Shaw Productions, LLC.
The main event fighters and their
promoters spoke on an international media conference call Tuesday. The
following are highlights from the call:
JOSEPH AGBEKO
“In boxing you have to fight the
best to be the best and I just want Vic to know that this is the fight of my
life. I know Vic Darchinyan picked to fight me because he thinks he can have
his way with me but I just want him to know that this is the biggest mistake
he has ever made in his career because he’s going to get the worst beating of
his career.
“Why didn’t he talk like this when
Nonito Donaire beat him? I wanted him to talk more and I want him to realize
that I’m going to beat him more than Donaire beat him.
“I know I’m better than Vic
Darchinyan. I know he can punch. I’m really, really ready for his punches. I
know he’s never been on the receiving end of someone who punches like me.
“Vic is always talking about his
power and about how he’s this and that but I’ve watched a couple of his fights
and I never saw that power. He’s always fought guys that are afraid of him and
he did what he wanted with them. But in this fight I’m going to do what I want
to do and beat him the way I want.
“I’m going to let him do whatever
he wants to do in this fight because I can do whatever he does better than
him.
VIC DARCHINYAN
“I think after this fight they are
going to change my opponent’s name to Joseph ‘Chimpanzee’ Agbeko. This is
going to be the biggest mismatch. Where would you like me to hurt you most? In
the body or in the face?
“I can’t spend my career just
defending, defending, defending. I have to move up in weight and go after more
titles. I have the power to demolish anyone. I’m going to keep moving up.
“I’ve seen Agbeko’s fights and
they don’t impress me. You will see, nothing compares to my power. I will
knock him out with my power. I can open my jaw and let him punch it and he
still won’t hurt me.
“I hope he’s working hard and
training extra hard for this fight. I don’t want it to be an easy fight. I
want to be your nightmare after this fight and not before because I want you
to get a good night’s sleep.
"I'm going to demolish him
(Donaire) in a rematch."
ELIAS NASSAR, Darchinyan’s
manager:
“There are not a lot of people who
don’t know that every single fight that Vic has asked for Gary Shaw has
delivered on.”
GARY SHAW,
Darchinyan’s promoter:
“I believe I represent probably a
fighter who will go down as one of the greatest boxers to ever fight in the
lower weights in the history of boxing.
Please tell all
the poachers out there that Vic and I are bound together for life. I want
everyone who’s on this call to hear that.
“Vic only wants to fight the best
fighters. Vic and Elias don’t care about weights. They only want the best
fighters and they believe right now that “King Kong” Agbeko is the best
fighter at 118 pounds.”
When will
Darchinyan fight Donaire again?
“SHOWTIME wants to buy the
single biggest fights out there. That’s why he fought Cristian Mijares,
that’s why he fought Jorge Arce and that’s why he’s fighting “King Kong”
Agbeko. And while he’s been on TV and knocking all these fighters out on TV
Donaire has not been heard of or seen. When Bob Arum mentions all his great
young fighters he never mentions Donaire. If you haven’t seen those articles
I’ll be more than happy to send them to you. Just yesterday he was talking
about his Russian fighters and his Puerto Rican fighters. No where did he
mention Nonito Donaire. So the answer to that is he has a fight in front of
him on Saturday. We have to win that fight and then the question is if we
win that fight do we want to stay at 118, move back down to 115 or do we
take on (Rafael) Marquez or (Israel) Vazquez or someone of that ilk at 122.
That is our plan right now. Vic fights for money, not for revenge.”
