By William Mackay: Unbeaten light welterweight slugger Jessie Vargas (16-0, 9 KO’s) is set to show why it might not be a good idea for Amir Khan to accept Floyd Mayweather’s invitation for Khan to fight Vargas in order to get a big money bout with him. All Khan can talk about is taking on Mayweather, but Khan isn’t interested in working his way into a fight with Floyd by knocking off the dangerous light welterweights and welterweights. Khan is taking on soft punchers and looking to get the fight by calling Mayweather out in the media. It’s the David Haye approach to landing a fight.
Vargas, 22, will be fighting Joseito Lopez (29-3, 17 KO’s) in a scheduled 10 round bout on the undercard of the Mayweather vs. Victor Ortiz fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada on September 17th. Vargas is looking to start making a name for himself by destroying Lopez in this fight and seeing if his promoter Mayweather can lure Khan in to try and get past Vargas.
My guess is Khan won’t want anything to do with the hard hitting Vargas and will continue to call out Mayweather, but not accept his invitation to fight Vargas. It may be Khan’s only chance to fight Floyd, and if he’s smart he’ll take his chances against Vargas and hope to get past him.
Vargas has looked great as of late, stopping Vivian Harris in the 1st round last April and then blasting out Walter Estrada by a 2nd round TKO win last July.
Lopez, 27, is no pushover, as he’s won his last seven fights since being beaten by Edgar Santana by a 10 round majority decision in April 2008. Lopez tried to slug with the harder hitting Santana in that fight and ended up taking a lot of hard power shots. If Lopez tries to slug it out with Vargas next week he’s going to get knocked out.
Vargas hits too hard and is a much better inside fighter than Lopez. What Lopez has going for him is a great jab and a decent left hook. He needs to keep the action on the outside and resist the temptation to try and impress in front of the MGM Grand crowd at ringside.
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