When Vic Darchinyan and Jorge Arce step into the ring together on Saturday, it will be in a fight that I think many of us would have preferred to see this bout two years and two weight classes ago. But that doesn’t mean that we should be upset that it is finally happening.

Back in 2006, Darchinyan was dominating the 112-pound division, carrying the IBF and IBO belts with him and stringing together an impressive knockout streak.

Arce was just getting out of a few wars with Hussein Hussein and sporting the WBC belt.

Both fighters talked up a storm and a fight between them seemed inevitable, even if it meant being in a different weight class, when 2007 rolled around. Then the wheels came off — for both of them.

In April of 2007, Arce challenged Christian Mijares for the super-flyweight title and promptly was handed a beating like he’s never seen before. Mijares did everything better than Arce, and cruised to a very wide unanimous decision.

The, in July, in his final fight at flyweight, Darchinyan ran into Nonito Donaire, who had Vic’s number and counterpunched him extremely well for five rounds before landing a perfect left hand. Darchinyan was knocked out to the point of not knowing it in his post fight interview. From then, he moved up a weight class, where he will finally meet Arce two years later.

Darchinyan is coming off of a one-sided knockout win over Mijares and is the first unified champion in the super-flyweight division’s history. Arce dabbled in the bantamweight division, but returned to 115 for his last few fights. Despite their drastically different results against a common opponent in Mijares, this shapes up to be an interesting fight.

Now that the fight is signed, the talking has again picked up. There is certainly no love lost between these two fighters, and Darchinyan, for one, is always ready with a great quote.

“He’s dumb. I’m going to make him look dumb and stupid,” said Darchinyan. “I’m going to play him like a cat and mouse and show how dumb he is. He is going to be covering himself after the first 20 seconds.”

As for Arce, he’s also not one to beat around the bush, and like Darchinyan, has promised a knockout.

“I will knock him out,” Arce said during a recent press conference. “I don’t see this fight going 12 rounds. I see it as a knockout. If he knocks me down once I’m going to get back up. He’s going to have to throw a lot of punches to knock me out. He’s in for a long night.”

On paper, right now, Darchinyan is a solid favorite to win this fight. He hits hard, and Arce allows himself to be hit. There is a chance that it really is that simple in this fight. There is also the other side of it, which is that Darchinyan is not exactly a defensive wizard, and Arce certainly knows how to go toe-to-toe with a slugger.

In a SHOWTIME media poll this week, 42 of 48 media outlets picked Darchinyan to win, with many of them predicting a knockout.

Darchinyan, too, thinks that he will knock Arce out.

“I expect this is going to be a good fight,” said Darchinyan. “I’m not looking to knock him out in the first round. He is a tough fighter and I know he is here to give me a tough fight. So this might go a couple rounds. But once I hit him – and before he realizes what hit him – the fight will be over.”

Arce, however, stands by the old boxing phrase that styles make fights

“People think because I lost to Mijares and Darchinyan beat Mijares that Darchinyan will automatically win our fight,” Arce pointed out. “But that’s not how it works. It is just talk. It is neither here nor there. Styles make fights. You’ll see after I nail him what I am saying.”

But in this matchup of styles, Arce is going to be available to be hit, perhaps having less of an ability to defend himself as Mijares did.

Darchinyan should be able to do to Arce the same thing that he did to Mijares, and eventually land enough of his crow-hopping left-hands to catch Arce and put him on the canvas. If he’s patient and boxes, as he was and as he did with Mijares, this fight is Vic’s to lose.

Arce, on the other hand, must be respected. If you’re going to go to war at this weight, Arce is not the guy you want to go with. He can punch and he can take a punch. For that reason, he’s dangerous for Darchinyan. Arce’s best chance may be that he is so easy to hit for Darchinyan that Darchinyan gets sloppy. In this case, Arce might be able to land the same punch that Donaire did, sending Vic back to queer street.

I’ve seen a lot of improvements from Darchinyan since his loss to Donaire. He has learned to respect and value the art of boxing and protecting yourself, and he has also learned to set punches up. But make no mistake, he is still wild. But that’s also a point to his credit.

I think this fight could play out in a similar way to the Manny Pacquiao – David Diaz fight from last year. Diaz could land some shots here and there, but he just couldn’t stop the bigger and faster puncher from landing at will. In the end it caught up with him. I think it will for Arce too.

Look for a very exciting fight, and don’t be surprised to see both men on the canvas at some point in the fight, but in the end, I think Darchinyan is just too good for Arce at this point in their careers.

Darchinyan will likely break down Arce, and the longer the fight lasts, the better it is for Darchinyan. But he must be wary of Arce, a man who has a solid chin and can mix it up with the best of them. If Arce lands some clean punches early in the fight, we could be looking at an upset. I’m saying Darchinyan gets off the canvas at least once to knock Arce out.

Prediction: Darchinyan KO 8.