By Chris Williams: If you had asked me this question a day before Oscar De La Hoya’s (39-6, 30 KOs)8th round beating at the hands of Manny Pacquiao on December 6th, I would have said that it was Fernando Vargas (26-5, 22 KOs), who has lost his last three fights. However, in comparing how truly terrible Oscar looked in his losing effort against Pacquiao compared to Vargas’ 12-round majority decision loss to Ricardo Mayorga in November 2007, I’d have to say that De La Hoya is by far the more shot fighter. Vargas, still a fresh 31, judging from his bout against Mayorga, still has a lot of power and reasonable speed left of his once impressive offensive skills.
No doubt Vargas’ not nearly the same fighter he was in 1999, a time when he was the IBF light middleweight champion and one of the best stars in all of boxing. Unfortunately for him, he ran into a tough fighter by the name of Felix Trinidad, who stopped him in a 12th round TKO in December 2000.
The knockout seemed to effect Vargas, as he was dropped in the 2nd round in his next fight against the relatively light-hitting Wilfredo Rivera in May 2001. Vargas ended up stopping Rivera in the 6th, but the knockdown seemed to suggest that Vargas needed more time to recover from his loss to Trinidad.
A year later, Vargas was beaten by De La Hoya in a 11th round TKO on September 14th, 2002. Again, this was a tough fight for Vargas, who probably could have beaten De La Hoya if the fight had occurred before Fernando had fought Trinidad or if he had more time to recover from his earlier loss to Felix.
However, after that loss, Vargas looked great for the next four years, beating Fitz Vanderpool, Tony Marshall, Raymond Joval, and Javier Castillejo, before losing to Shane Mosley in a 10th round stoppage due to swelling underneath Vargas’s left eye. At the time of the stoppage, Mosley was ahead on two of the three cards and Vargas on the other. I had Vargas up by a round and looking as if he was getting stronger.
It’s unfortunate that Joe Cortez had to stop the bout, because Vargas looked as if he could have made it through the next two rounds without the swelling getting too much worse. In the rematch on July 15th, 2006, Vargas simply got caught with a big shot, a left hand from Mosley in the 6th, and was knocked down.
There was little chance that Vargas could survive the rest of the round, and sure enough, Mosley finished him off with a flurry of shots after Fernando got up, leading to the referee stepping in and stopping the bout. It’s too bad that Vargas got caught, because he was doing well in the five prior rounds and might have been able to beat Mosley if he hadn’t got tagged with the left hand.
Except for his slightly puffy looking physique, Vargas looked good in his bout with Mayorga. Vargas survived 1st and 11th round knockdowns, both of which seemed more of a case of him being off balance than truly hurt, and to give Mayorga a lot of problems in the middle to late rounds with combinations and power shots.
If Vargas had a little more time to train, I think he would have come into the bout in excellent shape and likely would have beaten Mayorga. The weight, however, was Vargas’ main problem in the fight, because he looked too heavy for the fight and it seemed to effect his speed and endurance.
Overall, though, I thought Vargas looked good against Mayorga, a lot better than De La Hoya did against Pacquiao. Oscar looked old, slow and weak against Pacquiao, unable to pull the trigger with his shots and not capable of defending against the Filipino star.
The inability to pull the trigger, a problem that De La Hoya had against both Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Steve Forbes, his two prior opponents before the Pacquiao bout, seemed to be Oscar’s biggest problem in his fight with Manny. That, to me, makes me believe that De La Hoya would lose if he were to fight Vargas for a second time.
Say what you want about Vargas, if he comes in shape and is ready to fight, he still has all of his former power that he used to have, and throws nice combinations. I think he’d break Oscar down, beat him from body to head and possibly force Oscar to quit again on his stool.
For me, I think De La Hoya is by far the more shot fighter in comparison to Vargas. That’s not to say that I see Vargas beating a top middleweight or super middleweight, but I think he’s probably a level above Oscar and Felix Trinidad right now and would probably come out on top in a battle of the former 90s stars.
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