Columnist Dean Juipe: Now Oscar needs fight with Vargas

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, June 27, 2001 | 10:38 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

With spite as his incentive, Oscar De La Hoya once said he would never fight Fernando Vargas.

It was a personal issue, with De La Hoya holding Vargas in contempt for taunting him and with De La Hoya reluctant to agree to a bout that would help Vargas become a rich man.

Yet with De La Hoya in need of a major fight and rematches with Shane Mosley and Felix Trinidad unlikely at least in the near future, a fight with Vargas is easily the most intriguing match out there for the fading Golden Boy.

Gary Shaw, Vargas' promoter and the CEO at Main Events, agrees.

"The time has come for them to be in the ring together," Shaw said from his New Jersey office. "It's a fight that has tremendous fan appeal because there's real bad blood between them.

"It's a rare fight that doesn't need to be hyped."

Shaw has been trying to arrange the fight but he hasn't been successful just yet.

"I called Oscar's people prior to his fight with (Javier) Castillejo and offered two things," he said. "One was a doubleheader with Oscar and Fernando in separate fights, with the idea they would fight each other next.

"The other offer was to have them fight as soon as it was possible."

Neither proposal was accepted by De La Hoya's promoter, who told Shaw "we only do one fight at a time" and that approach precluded him from making any further commitments. But, as Shaw says, "I don't understand people when they say that. You have to have a plan and a big picture."

With De La Hoya coming across as increasingly egotistic, there's no predicting his next course of action. But he now holds a championship in a division that has only one other marquee fighter, and that's Vargas.

Vargas fights Shibata Flores Sept. 22 at Mandalay Bay and, should he win, he could fight De La Hoya in December.

While you wouldn't have known it from the local reviews the following day, De La Hoya looked only so-so in taking a decision win over the underwhelming Castillejo last Saturday at the MGM.

"I didn't see the fight but I heard he looked terrible, lethargic," Shaw said of De La Hoya. "I hear he's missing something as he goes up in weight."

What he's missing is his punching power, which makes it all the more unlikely that De La Hoya will jump from 154 pounds to 160 -- as he has been predicting -- anytime soon.

"If he's missing something at 154, I don't think he succeeds at 160," Shaw said. "And if he decides to fight Fernando, he'd better not be missing something or the fight will be over in a hurry."

Vargas, 21-1, has lost only to Trinidad, although that fight last Dec. 2 at Mandalay Bay was a rough one for him before it was stopped in the final round. Shaw says Vargas "absolutely does not" have any lingering physical repercussions from the loss, and that he's "not afraid of Oscar and would very much like to fight him."

The question now is whether De La Hoya has the nerve, or whether he has been reduced to a schtick in which he calls out his rivals without seriously having any intention of fighting them.

Personally, I suspect the latter.