By Eric Thomas: Top Rank promotions has signed 23-year-old welterweight fringe contender Jesse Vargas (19-0, 9 KO’s) to a fight contract. It’s an interesting choice, because the 23-year-old Vargas previously fought for Mayweather Promotions and he’s not looked especially great in the past year.
Bob Arum of Top Rank might be looking for some new blood to feed to his cash cow fighter former WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao after previously unbeaten welterweight contender Mike Jones was knocked out in the 11th round by Randall Bailey recently. Arum had been slowly grooming Jones for a title shot and then a a fight against Pacquiao. Jones’ loss to Bailey obviously spoiled Arum’s plans.
Arum has got his work cut out for him with Vargas, because he doesn’t look even as good as Jones. Vargas doesn’t have the huge size that the 6-foot Jones has, and he doesn’t have huge power either. Vargas looked incredibly boring in winning a recent 10 round decision over Steve Forbes last May. Vargas mostly moved and jabbed all night long. He treated Forbes as if he were an explosive puncher instead of an aging journeyman.
Perhaps the bad news for boxing fans is that with Vargas signing with Top Rank, it means that we’ll likely see a lot of Vargas in the near future with Arum making sure he includes him in all of his big pay-per-view and regular cable telecasts so that he can try and build a fan base for him. At 23, I don’t see Vargas improving fast enough to be put in with Pacquiao. He’s definitely not a threat to Pacquiao unlike Tim Bradley, another one of Arum’s recent signees to Top Rank.
Vargas reminds me a lot of a water down and weak version of Victor Ortiz once you take away his hand speed and big power. It’s difficult to imagine Vargas going anywhere in the welterweight division. He doesn’t hit hard enough and he’s easy to hit.
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