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September 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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A FATAL FLAW?
He's talented as hell, exciting too. But will the hot head of Ferocious Fernando Vargas, in trouble with the authorities again, undermine a potentially great career? GRAHAM HOUSTON investigates. |
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YEAH, YOU BAD: but Vargas would get a lot more respect if he kept his nose clean
- Get Big Pic Watching
Fernando Vargas as he outclassed Raul Marquez, his challenger
in their world junior middleweight title fight, it was hard not to feel
that this is a fighter who has it all.
That was certainly the way it appeared to me, observing from ringside
at Caesars Tahoe casino-hotel in picturesque Lake Tahoe, Nevada, on 17
July.
Vargas, although only 21, boxed in the manner of a master. His moves
were classy, his punching quick and sharp. He showed he has stamina,
too. He had never been past seven rounds, but there he was, in the 11th,
hammering Marquez with such force and vigour that the referee, Joe
Cortez, decided to call a halt after two minutes of the round. And this
at high altitude: Lake Tahoe is 6,200 ft above sea level.
One left the hotel's compact showroom (packed to capacity with a crowd
of just over 2,000) with that elevated feeling that comes from having
seen a superb fighter, a fighter for whom the future seemed so rich with
promise, not to mention the promise of riches.
How disappointing, then, to read, just 10 days later, that Vargas,
back home in southern California, had been arrested on suspicion of
assault. He and four companions faced several charges stemming from an
attack on a man who suffered what were described as moderate injuries.
As this article was being written, police were continuing their
inquiries. Vargas's lawyer maintains that not only is Vargas innocent of
all charges but that he was actually the victim of an assault and merely
defended himself. (See sidebar for details.)
Yet this was just what Vargas and those around him did not need;
headlines of the wrong sort entirely. Everyone knows that Vargas can be
hot-tempered, but no one, surely, could have foreseen anything quite
like this, even if, as one of his advisers believes, the fighter was
merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The boxing world waits with interest (and, in some quarters, no doubt,
anxiety) to see what happens next. No matter the outcome, some of the
gloss has been removed from Vargas's performance at Lake Tahoe (or
Stateline, as some prefer to call the location that straddles the
Nevada-California border).
And this is a shame, because Vargas, in only his 17th fight (all
inside-the-distance wins), gave the sort of display that stamps him as
one of the best fighters in the world.
He was expected to win, of course. Marquez, the 27-year-old from
Houston, Texas, is rugged, brave, a southpaw and a former holder of the
International Boxing Federation title that Vargas was defending. The
odds went up as high as 12-1 on Vargas.
But what was so impressive was the way that Vargas went about his
work.
There had been concern in his camp that he might get caught up in the
bad-blood emotions that swirled around this fight, that he would
foolishly go in and slug it out instead of being smart. There indeed
seemed grounds for such apprehension when Vargas shoved Marquez at the
weigh-in (see Frontline Diary).
But Vargas kept cool, boxed intelligently. "I fight with a controlled
anger," he told us afterwards.
Marquez plodded forward mechanically but took punishment in every
round. Even when Vargas was dropped to his knees by a low blow in the
sixth round the flow of the fight was barely interrupted. It was flowing
all one way, and that was in favour of Vargas.
Sometimes, a losing fighter has his moments. But Marquez did not
appear to have any, such was the dominance of Vargas. The scorecards
were heavily in favour of the champion after 10 rounds: 100-89, 99-90,
99-90, which included the point that Marquez had deducted for the low
blow. In eight of the 10 rounds, all three judges went for Vargas, while
in the two remaining rounds he had the vote of two of the three
arbiters. I agreed with the judge who gave Vargas every round.
Very soon it was apparent that the only way Marquez could win was by
landing a big punch, but although he hits heavily he is not really a
one-blow finisher.
He kept trying, though, kept marching straight ahead - and kept
getting hit. His southpaw stance was not of the slightest concern to
Vargas, who knocked back his opponent's head with left jabs, whipped in
left hooks and fired straight rights through the middle, body as well as
head, while at other times the champion snapped off quick, crisp
combinations.
Marquez is susceptible to facial damage - "busting up" as the fight
game indelicately puts it - and he was soon looking the worse for wear
in this fight, too, suffering a cut over the left eye in the opening
round and looking a bit of a mess as the bout wore on, with a cut over
the right eye by the fifth, his high cheekbones bruised and swollen,
both eyes battered and bloodied.
At times Marquez landed a punch or two, but Vargas fired back so
swiftly and severely that the challenger never had a chance to mount
any sort of momentum.
And if Marquez hoped that Vargas might slow down, he must have
realised by the middle rounds that this was not going to happen,
especially after the way the champion came back so strongly in the
seventh after a blatantly low left-hander sank him to one knee in the
sixth, causing referee Cortez to give him time to recover. (And it was a
round that Vargas still won on the scorecards, even without the
one-point deduction from Marquez's score).
All through the fight, Vargas's moves were of the sort that are
sometimes described as a delight to watch. He would move around Marquez,
circling him so effortlessly that the challenger sometimes seemed headed
in the wrong direction. And round about the ninth one began to wonder
just how much more Marquez could take. One right-hander actually seemed
to make a crunching sound as it landed, and when a series of punches in
the 11th had Marquez wobbling back it was a signal to referee Cortez
that matters should be brought to a conclusion.
There was an incident in the ring immediately afterwards when Vargas
handed Marquez a T-shirt that was tossed away. It was, Vargas said
later, an Oscar De La Hoya shirt that Marquez had presented to him at a
press conference, well knowing the antipathy between Vargas and the
Golden Boy. "I told him: 'I'm gonna give you this shirt after the fight
to wipe your blood with,'" Vargas said.
The mood in the Vargas camp was understandably jubilant. Veteran
co-trainer Lou Duva said: "I once saw a great fighter by the name of
Sugar Ray Robinson. He was the greatest. But this guy is gonna be the
greatest out there."
Kathy Duva, head of Main Events, Vargas's promotional company, said
the fighter has the toughness of Evander Holyfield, the cleverness of
Pernell Whitaker (both long associated with Main Events). "He's going to
be one of the biggest stars we've ever seen," she said.
Vargas said his goal is to unify the 154lbs (11 stone) division. Yes,
he would like to meet David Reid, the World Boxing Association champion.
"David Reid is a great champion - I just want to see who's the greater,
me or him," he said. "I hope we can get it together real soon."
He said he had to give Marquez a lot of credit for taking so much
punishment. "I was amazed how much he took," he said.
As to going beyond seven rounds for the first time, he said: "I don't
get ready for six or seven rounds, I get ready for 12 rounds. I didn't
go 12 rounds tonight but - one round - I think you can give me the
benefit of the doubt."
As to sticking to the plan of outboxing Marquez, not getting involved
in exchanges, he said: "My trainer [Eduardo Garcia] says the name of the
game is to be intelligent first, then game. I want people to know that
Fernando Vargas is an intelligent fighter."
Although Marquez did not appear at the post-fight conference, having
gone to hospital for stitches, he told Home Box Office's Larry Merchant
in the post-fight TV interview: "Fernando was real good - a
sharpshooter. I couldn't catch up to him. He's too quick, better than I
thought he was. He's a very smart fighter. I tried to make him slug, to
fight my fight, but he wouldn't. He'd land two or three punches and then
get out." Marquez also said this will probably be his last fight. But
with only two losses in 30 fights (the other due to cut and swollen
eyes, against Yory Boy Campas), Marquez may well decide, when the
disappointment fades, to try again.
Matchmaker Carl Moretti said the hostility between the fighters was
forgotten when Marquez came to Vargas's dressing room to congratulate
him and the fighters shook hands, agreeing that there were no hard
feelings. "He told Fernando he thinks he's the best out there at 154
pounds," Moretti said. Many would second the opinion.
But within days came the disquieting news of Vargas's arrest. Perhaps
it will come to nothing, maybe even do some good by driving home to him
that, as a celebrity, he has to be extra-careful in how he conducts
himself and the company he keeps.
The pity of it all is that much of the good he did himself inside the
ring had been undone, so soon, by events that took place outside it. |
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