Ring Magazine top five bantamweight Vic Darchinyan (36-3-1, 27 KOs) looks to capture a 
minor belt in a 12-round fight at 118 pounds on Saturday, September 3 against untested South African Evans Mbamba (18-1, 9 KOs) in Yerevan, the capital of Darchinyan’s native Armenia. As this is mainly a fight to keep Darchinyan active rather than a serious title challenge, it will not be carried on US television.
Mbamba has fought only once outside his native South Africa, where he lost a 12-round unanimous decision to WBC junior bantamweight titlist Tomas Rojas (36-13-1, 24 KOs) in which Mbamba found himself on the canvas twice, once each in the third and eleventh rounds of the contest. Rojas, for his part, was knocked out in two rounds by Darchinyan for that same belt back in 2009. Mbamba has not fought since October 10th of last year, when he beat local journeyman Michael Ramabaletsa (6-3, 3 KOs) in a seventh round TKO.
Vic Darchinyan, for his part, came up on the short end of the Showtime bantamweight tournament against Abner Mares by split decision last December. This will be his second fight since losing that contest, and it is a step down in competition from Yonnhy Perez, who fell to Darchinyan by technical decision after Perez sustained a cut from an accidental clash of heads in the fifth round of a fight the Armenian was winning handily. Darchinyan continues to bide his time and defend his minor IBO title while he waits for a shot against one of the major titlists in the bantamweight division.
There are no fights of significance on the undercard; the main event is, as of this writing, the only fight scheduled for more than four rounds at the Yerevan event.
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