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July 1999
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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MR ANGRY OF OXNARD
Unbeaten IBF light-middle champ Ferocious Fernando Vargas - 16-0, 16 KO's - is furious with his California rival, Oscar De La Hoya, and none-too pleased with next-up challenger Raul Marquez. But GRAHAM HOUSTON discovers that Vargas has a soft spot for his WBA counterpart and former Olympic teammate, David Reid, also in action this month. |
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MEAN MACHINE: Vargas has stopped each of his opponents, which next-up Marquez
feels could work against the young champ
- Get Big Pic Fernando Vargas is getting a little hot under the collar these days. Mention Oscar De
La Hoya to him and he will give some forthright opinions on the Golden Boy. And Vargas is
not at all well-disposed towards his next opponent, Raul Marquez, either. Vargas defends his International Boxing Federation junior iddleweight title against
Marquez at Caesars Tahoe casino hotel, Lake Tahoe, Nevada on 17 July, to be televised in
America on Home Box Office ("Boxing After Dark"). But the fighter Vargas wishes he was meeting is De La Hoya. Words have been exchanged
through the American media. And the Vargas-De La Hoya mutual antipathy has to some extent
overshadowed the fight with Marquez. Vargas has never disguised the fact that he dislikes the welterweight champ, stemming
from the time they sparred together five years ago. But comments in the past few weeks by
Vargas have led De La Hoya to make a declaration that he will never give Vargas a fight.
Vargas, De La Hoya says, has disrespected him. Over to you, Fernando. The 21-year-old from Oxnard, southern California, said from his
training camp at Big Bear, in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Los Angeles: "De
La Hoya says he'll never fight me because of the fact I disrespected him, but when in
this game have you ever seen anybody kiss up to a fighter to fight him? If a fighter feels
he's the better fighter, he's gonna say it and there's only one way to find
out. He gave a rematch to [Julio Cesar] Chavez – he wanted to get him in the ring so
bad [said with heavy sarcasm] because Chavez disrespected him. Now we all know the truth
why he wanted to fight Chavez, you saw how much more faded Chavez was. It was a great
money fight for him and an easy win. Now that a young fighter that ain't gonna take a
dive, and that's talented enough to beat him, disrespects him, all of a sudden he
doesn't want to fight him because he disrespected him. "I wouldn't want to knock him out. I'd like to give him a beating for 12
rounds. When I was 16 years of age I looked up to this guy, he was like an idol to me
because he'd won an Olympic gold medal, something I wanted to do, and when I
came out and worked [sparred] with him for two to three weeks, I found a different person
[to what he had expected]. It was a let down. I held my own, not a lot of rounds because I
was an amateur, I was only 16. But he was nothing like how he was portrayed." And what about Vargas's next opponent, Marquez, the 27-year-old former IBF champ
from Houston, Texas? "I don't like him too much," Vargas said.
"It's just that he disrespected me a few times, so I have no respect for him.
We'll see how much he can do with his fists instead of his mouth. He takes a lot of
shots. You can hit him with your eyes closed. He's the type of fighter that has no
defence. But you have to be ready to pound on him for a couple of rounds, because he can
take a punch. "I'm ready to go 12 rounds if necessary, but I don't see it going 12
rounds. He swells easy and he cuts easy. But, we'll see." Marquez is a southpaw, but this does not worry Vargas. He said: "I've never
had a problem in my life with a southpaw – in fact I find them easier than regular
fighters, it's kinda funny. So I look forward to fighting him. "I'm going
to work a lot of combinations, I'm not going to change anything. I know how to make
southpaws miss and make them pay. He's really slow. You never know, you jump on him
early, they could stop it early." This will be Vargas's second defence of the title that he won by stopping Yory Boy
Campas in seven rounds at Atlantic City last December. A fight that looked tough on paper
was made to look easy. As Campas had taken the IBF title from Marquez a year earlier, it
is no surprise that Vargas is a big betting favourite. Vargas, who has won 16 consecutive
bouts - all inside the distance - is the red-hot fighter, the emerging superstar, while
Marquez is seen, perhaps unfairly, as damaged goods. Vargas, in fact, said that Marquez is not in the same class as Campas: "Yory Boy
Campas is a great fighter - strong, durable, hits like a mule," Vargas said. "I
don't compare Marquez with him." But Marquez has something to say about all this. He feels that people are focusing too
much on his back-to-back IBF title fights in late 1997, when he suffered cuts and
swellings in a disputed, split decision win over Keith Mullings and then came back less
than three months later (too soon, in light of the facial battering Mullings had
inflicted) to lose in eight rounds to Campas. Speaking from Houston, Marquez said: "I should never have taken the fight with
Campas after the fight I had with Mullings, but we make mistakes. I went in there still
beat-up from the Mullings fight and I think that's what won Campas the fight. By the
second round my face had already started to swell up, and I didn't get hit that
much." What about Marquez disrespecting Vargas? Marquez said the whole thing started during a
telephone conference call earlier this year, when Vargas was talking about his title
defence in March against Britain's Howard Clarke. Marquez said a Houston newspaper
reporter had invited him to listen in. Undiplomatically, Marquez decided to speak up and
tell Vargas what he felt were some home truths. "I just told him facts, nothing bad," Marquez said. "I said: ‘Hey,
Fernando, you talk about fighting De La Hoya, why don't you forget about Oscar and
concentrate on junior middleweights? Oscar's a welterweight and sooner or later
he'll move up to junior middle. I'm a junior middleweight, ranked No. 4 by the
IBF. If you want to be respected as a champion, you need to fight better competition than
this guy Howard Clarke.' "Then he started yelling at me, talking real bad about me. That's what got
him started. I have nothing to say about him, he's a good fighter. If he wants to
bad-mouth me, that's his way - well, he's always known to be like that. But in
the ring, just me and him, that's what really matters." Marquez cannot understand why he is being written off in this fight. He is, after all, a world-class fighter with a record of 30 wins against that one loss
to Campas, and has stopped 20 opponents. Like Vargas, he boxed in the Olympics (Marquez in
1992, Vargas in 1996). He is the more experienced man. He knocked out veteran Anthony
Stephens (to win the then-vacant IBF title) and southpaw Romalis Ellis, in a title
defence. Marquez knows the win over Keith Mullings was controversial but said that he has
watched the video numerous times and truly feels he won. "He didn't do
enough," Marquez said of Mullings. "You can't judge the fight by my face. "I'm not taking the fight for the money, to be an opponent for Fernando
Vargas - I'm going in there to win the title and I feel that I can. He's never
been in a tough 12-round fight, the closest he's been is seven rounds. I've got
more championship rounds than he does, and I'm a young 27, it's not like
I've had a lot of wars. "I've been boxing since I was seven years old. I know what it takes to beat
him. I'd rather not say, but you'll see it July 17, when I become champion. I
know they hype him up to be the next star, whatever, but my opinion is I think he's
overrated and I'm going to expose him. The last two guys that I fought [Jose Alfredo
Shibata Flores, the Mexican southpaw, and a Texas fighter named Michael Lerma] were much
better fighters than Howard Clarke. "Fighters I knocked out, Romalis Ellis, Anthony Stephens, Fernando got them when
they were on the way down. Sure, I lost to Yory Boy Campas and he beat Yory Boy, but if
I'd taken more time off with the cuts that I had in the Mullings fight - I took,
like, 70 stitches - instead of jumping right back in there, well, you know the story. "Yory Boy came into the locker room and said he was going to give me the rematch,
but he never did. Why? He knows if my face had been healed right, I'd have beaten
him. Even then, the judges had it an even fight. And the Yory Boy that fought me was not
the same Yory Boy that fought Fernando. When he fought me, this guy was hungry, he wanted
to win - I hit him and he kept coming. When he fought Fernando, he gave up. "I think it's going to be a great fight. I know he's talking bad about
me. A lot of people, the press, don't give me a chance, but people that really,
really know about boxing give me a chance. You can learn a lot from a defeat. I'm a
legitimate contender, an ex-world champion, an ex-Olympian like he is - I'm going to
be very ready and I feel very confident." But while I have no doubt that Marquez will give it his all, Vargas is the sharper,
faster, more gifted fighter. And he is six years younger. They are like trains going in
different directions. I believe Marquez will earn the respect of Vargas, but he is not
likely to beat him and I think the challenger will do well if he can be the first to go
more than seven rounds with Vargas. The night before Fernando Vargas meets Raul Marquez at Lake Tahoe, Nevada, another
unbeaten world 11st (154lbs) champ is in action, across America on the east coast at
Atlantic City, New Jersey, when David Reid, the "American Dream" from
Philadelphia, defends his World Boxing Association title against mandatory challenger
Kevin Kelly, of Australia. It looks a formality for the undefeated Reid, who has won 12 professional fights in a
row, seven inside the distance. Kelly, a former Commonwealth champion, has a respectable
record of 23 wins, five losses and three draws (10 opponents halted) and has not lost in
four years, but most of his opponents have been distinctly average. In his only fight against a world calibre opponent, Kelly, 29, was outpointed by
Britain's Chris Pyatt, who took his Commonwealth title in a bout at Cardiff. It was a
controversial decision, although Boxing Monthly had Pyatt winning. Kelly was busier than
Pyatt but the Aussie's punching was described as "pitter-patter", even
though he had Pyatt down in an apparently off-balance type of flooring. But Pyatt, at 32,
was a faded fighter. I saw Kelly on an ESPN-TV show from Australia last year and he seemed a limited type of
fighter, although his hand-speed was useful. But he seems to be no match for Reid, who is
making his first defence of the title he won by outpointing Laurent Boudouani in February.
This is yet another example of a world sanctioning body ordering a title fight that is to
all intents a mismatch. A fight between Reid and Vargas would be one of the most intriguing matches in years.
Vargas certainly wants it. He said from his training camp at Big Bear, California:
"I'd love that fight. We've already offered them the fight. They don't
want it right now, which in a sense is smart because it can be bigger money later on. But
to get in the ring with David Reid would be a great fight. "David Reid is a very talented fighter, so we'll see who is more talented.
I've nothing against David. I like David Reid. He's been a real good guy. I
think he's been saying a few things because of business. I think he felt a little bad
because he's ranked No. 2 and I'm ranked No. 1 [in some light-middle rankings].
So I can understand why he'd say a few things." |
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