Fernando Vargas and The Aftermath: Questions and Answers

Mike Samuels

31.07 - It's been almost a year since Fernando Vargas was stopped in the 11th round by Oscar De la Hoya and since then Vargas has left a lot of questions that people want to be answered.

With that said, Vargas knew that his performance against the WBC's #1 contender (no joke) would be accompanied by the same pressures that Annika Sorenstan felt in May before she teed off against the men of the PGA tour.

Vargas had to have known that the comeback road is something fighters try to stay away from. It presents a lot of lose-lose situations.

For instance, if Vargas had knocked out Vanderpool in one round people would say that all he proved was that the WBC's mandatory fighters are garbage.

And, well, that's a strong argument. But Vargas didn't knock out Vanderpool in one round. Instead he showed how rusty he was and had trouble with the legless, feather punching #1 contender. That doesn't speak very loudly to the world of boxing, and Vargas knows that.

Not focusing on the actual fight, I would like to give Vargas a lot of credit for rating his performance a 3 out of 10. Most guys in this business can look like absolute crap and go and to say that they've just fought the best fight of their life. A lot of guys (Lennox Lewis, anyone?) will be blinded by their own success and in this case ignorance, to realize that maybe it wasn't their day. I've been hard on Vargas since he came out before the Trinidad fight with more arrogance than Carmelo Anthony thanking himself, but I give the Mexican warrior a lot of credit this week. It's just a must.

Even if Main Events denies it up and down and sideways, Fernando Vargas was rushed into stardom. Who in their right mind would but a young undefeated fighter up against a champion who has had more defenses of his title than his opponent has actual fights. That's what happened with Vargas and I honestly believe that he has been damaged by the Trinidad fight. Oscar De la Hoya would have beaten him regardless of the Trinidad fight, but at just 25 years old Vargas has fought two prime champions, made a lot of money, but in the process he has slowed his career down by miles.

The right track for Vargas is to fight more. He is supposed to be fighting in October and then back on HBO in January and that's the only thing that he needs to be doing. The problem with HBO fighters is they tend to only fight two, maybe three -- with luck implied -- times a year. By the time Joe Louis was 25 years old he was 42-1. Most all of the older fighters fought all the time. Every other week, three times a month, up to ten to twenty times a year.

That was then and this is now and I'm not asking for it to be changed. But boxing has become more a business than a sport. It's all about dates, promoters, money, fans, and drawing power. It's not about getting a fighter to become great and getting a fighter to get the best of his abilities while in the ring. When Ali and Norton and Holmes and Foreman were fighting boxing was considered their family. Boxing loved them and looked out for them -- not much, but enough. Fernando Vargas is the perfect example of a pot of gold at the hands of his promotion team. Instead of waiting for Trinidad or De la Hoya the money signs were blinding his team and his advisers.

Fernando and his team were already cashing their checks without worrying about what could happen to his career and more importantly his health.

Vargas has finally learned how to be humbled and he continues to be a huge draw for the Mexican audience and even a lot of the popular American fans. He's positive for boxing and I am only hoping that he really learns how to handle himself in this ruthless business. If he does, we should be seeing a lot of good things from Vargas.

It may be too late, though.

We'll see when he fights a legit contender.

Either way, I'm rooting for El Feroz.

You should be too.