By Matthew Hurley

There has always been something compellingly frustrating about Fernando Vargas.  He inhabits all of the qualities a true fight fan requires, skills, guts and a winning, albeit, thuggish attitude.  His short resume is only short because he leapt into the fray at a very young age and was so confident of his skills that he took on the best in the business.  There’s much to admire about “Ferocious” Fernando.  And then there’s his record – a brutal loss to Felix Trinidad, a brutal loss to Oscar De La Hoya and a stoppage loss to Shane Mosley.  All of those fights were exciting and Vargas was competitive to the end, but he lost them.  Now he gets a shot at redemption Saturday night in a rematch with Shane Mosley.  Even Vargas knows this is do or die.

“Mosley didn’t even want this fight,” he sneers over the chip on his shoulder.  “He was backed into it.  He didn’t even want to be at the press conference after the (first) fight and he was the winner.  He didn’t want to catch me because he knew I was going to call him out.  He didn’t want this fight.  He’s doing it for the money and I’m doing it for vindication.”

It sounds all well and good and you know that Vargas means it.  This will be his first and last chance to get revenge on a fighter who put a loss on his record.  That it’s coming against Mosley, after a fight that he seemed to be turning around only to have it stopped because of a vicious swelling over his left eye, lends credence to his confidence. 

Confidence is something the precocious boxer from Oxnard, California has never lacked.  But it hasn’t served him well in his biggest bouts.  In fact, it’s that very confidence, bordering on arrogance that has led him to fight with his heart instead of his head.  In none of those big three losses did he establish his jab from the outset.  Instead he marched right in, determined to impose his will.  It cost him dearly.  Only in the Mosley fight did it seem to dawn on him that by sacrificing his skills for machismo did he begin to alter his attack. 

The swelling over his eye in the first Mosley fight necessitated a more cautious, but deliberate approach.  The injury came so early that the bout was in the hands of the referee almost immediately, but instead of panicking Vargas slowed down his attack and began to impose his size and strength on Mosley with the jab and by muscling Shane in close.  The success he was having until the bout was stopped in the 10th round left enough doubt in the minds of many as to who was the better man.  For that, Vargas has his shot at finally reversing a loss on his record.  It’s a happenstance that he seems determined to take advantage of.

“In all my fights I’ve shown the type of fighter I am,” he says, almost willing himself to keep his composure.  “I’m thankful to God that I got it (this fight).  The other two fighters that beat me would not give me a rematch, and they openly admitted that I was their toughest fight.  So I’m excited.  I’m thankful to God that I got the rematch and I’m looking forward to it.”

Vargas has always talked a good game and he’s always been a fierce competitor in the ring, even against the upper echelon fighters of his time.  He was unimpressed with Mosley’s superior speed, but it took the swelling over his eye to knock it into his head that the way to slow down a faster fighter is to use a stiff, consistent jab.  He maintains that there will be no mistakes this time around.  And there is urgency in his words.  The simple fact is Vargas has to win this fight in order to be viable for big fights down the road.  If he loses and continues on he becomes a steppingstone, and his sense of pride won’t allow that. 

Where Mosley does seem resigned to this fight, already dismissing a bout later this year with Floyd Mayweather because of weight issues, Vargas is completely focused on the task at hand.  He truly believes he’s the better fighter.  That may not be the case but after the first bout there doesn’t seem to be much question as to who the stronger fighter is.  Vargas is a very big junior middleweight.  Mosley, who started at lightweight, is now nothing more than a blown up welterweight.  And despite the injury over his eye, Vargas never once seemed bothered by Mosley’s power.  That could prove telling in the rematch.

“He felt my strength.  I didn’t feel anything from him.  Every time we got on the inside he held me.  At the fighter meeting, I’m going to have my team make sure that the referee allows me to fight on the inside and watches his head because he comes in with head all the time.  The swelling was caused from a head butt, not a punch.  I remember each time getting head butted.  He only hurt me with his head.”

Head butts or not, and it did appear as though there were more than a few clashes of heads, Mosley also cracked Vargas with repeated overhand rights.  Those punches had as much to do with the swelling as any head butt.  But Vargas is having none of it.

“It was a head butt,” he says with a roll of his eyes.  “Those right hands were nothing.  The referee shouldn’t have stopped it anyway.  I could see I was walking him down.  That swelling meant nothing.  I could see him and I knew I had him.  I knew he was tired.  I knew I had him and then…”

Fernando Vargas is finally getting what he’s always wanted, a second chance.  He knows that he won’t get another one if he loses this fight.  Oscar De La Hoya has expressed no interest in fighting him again and Felix Trinidad is retired.  Even Winky Wright, whom Vargas holds a disputed decision victory over, has said he won’t fight Vargas again. 

This is do-or-die for the fighter who prides himself on pleasing his fans.  However this time around he would be well served to forget about his fans and fight his fight.  He shouldn’t worry about anything else but the fighter in front of him, Shane Mosley.  And Mosley already proved to be a difficult task for him.  It all starts with the jab.  If he can remember that he just may get a win on his ledger over a fighter who has beaten him. 

“I want vindication,” he says.  “I’m going to get it on July 15th.”