On tonight's Shobox, unified super flyweight titlist Vic Darchinyan scored a wide unanimous decision over unknown but very game contender Rodrigo Guerrero.  The final scores were 118-110, 117-111 and 120-108.  Bad Left Hook scored the fight 119-109.

Not much was expected from this fight, which was originally slated to be an undercard for Abraham-Dirrell, but the novice Guerrero put up a tougher than expected fight.  For the first few rounds, the two were in a dogfight, with Darchinyan outboxing Guerrero on the outside, but Guerrero occasionally pinning Darchinyan up against the ropes and unloading on him there.  However, as the fight wore on, Darchinyan realized he was able to counter the inexperienced Guerrero almost at will, and he did a very rare thing for Vic Darchinyan - boxed backwards.  Fortunately, it worked brilliantly for him, and he was able to dominate much of the rest of the fight.

While Darchinyan looked pretty good and dominated the fight, Guerrero is someone who we can probably expect to see on TV again.  He took Darchinyan's best shots all night long and just kept coming forward.  Not only did he keep moving, but every time it seemed like he had nothing left, he was able to dig deep and come back with a few more big punches.  He made a tremendous display of heart and chin, and if he's built up against successively better opponents, he still could be someone down the line. 

After the fight, Darchinyan said this will be his last fight at 115 if he can't get a fight against Nonito Donaire, who he belittled by suggesting that Guerrero could beat him.  If Donaire isn't able to make the fight, then he'll be moving to 118 to fight "better champions."

On the undercard, Leonard Zappavigna, or Lenny Zappa, pulled out an undeserved decision over Fernando Angulo, with scores of 116-111, 114-113 and 116-111.  Bad Left Hook had the bout scored 115-112 in favor of Angulo. 

Zappa was able to win rounds early by landing a few punches and clinching, preventing Angulo, who took the fight on two-weeks' notice, from getting into a flow.  However, around the fourth round, Angulo started to find his range, and became the persistent volume puncher that I've come to know and love.  In the sixth round, Angulo opened up a huge cut over Zappa's left eye that really seemed to bother Zappa for the rest of the fight. Still, the California judges (including the increasingly uneven Glen Hamada) found a way to protect the promoter's fighter, giving Zappa the decision.  114-113 might have been an acceptable score, but 116-111 was beyond reality. 

For Zappa, this probably means taking a step back in his next fight.  He looked like an exciting blood and guts fighter, in the mold of countryman Michael Katsidis, but he just doesn't look to be world class at this point.  For Angulo, it's yet another tough decision gone the wrong way.  Hopefully he won't take 10 months off between this and his next fight.

Tonight's 140-pound title unification between Devon Alexander and Juan Urango is live on HBO Boxing After Dark at 9:30pm ET, and we'll be here with live, round-by-round coverage, scoring and analysis for the bout. We'll also be starting with ShoBox at 9pm ET on Showtime, as hyped Aussie prospect Leonardo "Lenny Zappa" Zappavigna will get his first American TV exposure in the opening fight against Fernando Angulo.

DEVON ALEXANDER		JUAN URANGO
	Main Event

Without question, Saturday night's special edition of ShoBox: The Next Generation was not exactly what Showtime had in mind for March 6.

Originally, Saturday night was going to kick off stage two of the Super Six World Boxing Classic. Arthur Abraham and Andre Dirrell were set to meet in Rancho Mirage, California, with junior bantamweight titlist Vic Darchinyan in the co-feature, helping Abraham draw in the surrounding area's large Armenian population.

Instead, Dirrell pulled out with a reported back injury, re-scheduling for three weeks later in Detroit. So Showtime had a decision. They could cancel the entire card, or go ahead with Darchinyan. They chose the latter, keeping fighters getting their paydays and Showtime exposure, though now on a smaller show.

WBC and WBA Junior Bantamweight Titles: Vic Darchinyan (33-2-1, 27 KO) v. Rodrigo Guerrero (13-1-1, 9 KO)

Well...it's not the best main event, and no one is going to argue that it is. Darchinyan is an enormous favorite over the unknown Guerrero, a Mexican southpaw who does have wins over Luis Maldonado and Juan Alberto Rosas. Of course, Darchinyan also beat Maldonado back when Maldonado was better than he is now, and Rosas has had trouble in steps up before. And past Maldonado and Rosas, the W-L-D record of Guerrero's opponents coming into fights with him is just 35-37-3.

The only X-factor here is age. Darchinyan, at 34, is getting old for a small fighter. But outside of a perhaps ill-advised step up to 118 pounds and a poor gameplan last year against Joseph Agbeko, Darchinyan has been thoroughly dominant again since his 2007 loss to Nonito Donaire. Since that time, he has blasted Federico Catubay, Dmitri Kirilov, Cristian Mijares, Jorge Arce and Tomas Rojas. And the southpaw stance of Guerrero wouldn't seem to be an issue -- both Mijares and Rojas are lefties.

Rojas was Darchinyan's last bout in December, and looked OK in the opening round before being brutally knocked out in the second.

Put simply, this is Darchinyan's fight to lose, and a Guerrero win would be a big early front-runner for Upset of the Year. Keep in mind this was not scheduled so much to be a competitive challenge for Vic, but a stay-busy fight for the "Raging Bull," and a helper for promoter Gary Shaw in drawing a good house in California. In that role, the fight made a lot of sense.

I wouldn't expect much of a fight. Darchinyan TKO-5

Lightweights, 12 Rounds: Leonardo Zappavigna (22-0, 15 KO) v. Fernando Angulo (22-6, 14 KO)

This is the real attraction for hardcore American fight fans on Saturday, I think. Zappavigna -- aka "Lenny Zappa" -- is an Aussie brawler who has garnered a lot of hype in Oz. He made his American debut off-TV on the December 12 Showtime undercard, shutting out journeyman Sergio Macias (14-20-1, 6 KO) over six rounds. Angulo usually makes for a good fight, and this one has fireworks to spare on paper.

I'm not going to make a pick because I haven't seen enough of Zappavigna to do so, but here's a 5-minute highlight reel for Zappavigna (song NSFW, probably):

Despite the postponement of Arthur Abraham-Andre Dirrell, Showtime will be keeping boxing on the airwaves on March 6, bumping Vic Darchinyan into the main event of what is now a "special" ShoBox card.

Darchinyan (33-2-1, 27 KO) will defend the WBC and WBA junior bantamweight titles against Rodrigo Guerrero (13-1-1, 9 KO), a fringe contender at best who has fought in a 12-round contest just once in his career, beating Juan Alberto Rosas by split decision in 2008. His best win came against Luis Maldonado (UD-8) last year. Darchinyan beat Maldonado back in 2006, and before fighting Guerrero, the Mexican had been stopped in back-to-back fights against Nonito Donaire and Fernando Montiel.

So to say Guerrero is a bit of an unfit challenger on paper is probably an understatement. On paper, he doesn't belong in the ring with Darchinyan. It wasn't even a good co-feature, and it's a terrible main event.

Now in the co-feature, Australian Leonardo Zappavigna (22-0, 15 KO) will meet Fernando Angulo (22-6, 14 KO). Angulo generally makes for exciting fights, and Zappavigna is essentially an unknown commodity, fighting for the second time on American soil. He made his U.S. debut in December, beating Sergio Macias, who came in with a record of 14-18-1. Angulo has lost two in a row to Anges Adjaho and Ameth Diaz.

Zappavigna is described in the press release as having a long rat-tail a la Kostya Tszyu, and his idol is Arturo Gatti, so we could see some real fireworks to lead off the night. He was a four-time national champion in Australia and went 72-9 as an amateur.

The show will start at 9pm ET, with HBO's Devon Alexander-Juan Urango fight starting at 9:30. I don't think anyone will have much trouble picking which fight to watch, but it's pretty honorable of Showtime to keep these four guys working and get them a payday. They had nothing to do with the postponement of Abraham-Dirrell, and they're not being punished for Dirrell hurting his back.