Thursday, Sept. 12, 2002 | 9:50 a.m.
The fight he always wanted is on his doorstep and Fernando Vargas is brash as ever.
Stoked by his own physique and unfailingly certain he is the better fighter, Vargas meets Oscar De La Hoya in a junior middleweight unification title fight Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. The long-awaited and once-delayed bout is an intriguing clash of potent combatants, with Vargas cast in the role of angry pursuer.
"People overestimate his skills and underestimate mine," Vargas said of the 154-pound rivals, each of whom was raised in the Los Angeles area. "He's never faced anyone as big or as tough as me.
"I'll walk through him."
A simmering feud, albeit one with a hazy origin, only adds to the stakes as Vargas and De La Hoya capitalize on their professional as well as ethnic assets in a pay-per-view fight that figures to be worth millions.
Vargas, according to papers filed with the Nevada State Athletic Commission, is guaranteed $3.8 million plus a sizable percentage of the receipts that assures him something in the neighborhood of $6 million; De La Hoya gets a minimum of $8 million.
The arena is sold out and promoter Bob Arum expects a bustling pay-per-view (and closed circuit) response for a fight that has been in the public's consciousness for several years.
"I'm an entertainer," Vargas said. "I lay my opponents out. The fans also know I'll die for a cause if I have to."
Vargas, 24, is 22-1 with 20 wins by knockout and holds the World Boxing Association championship at 154 pounds.
De La Hoya, 29, is 34-2 with 27 KOs and possesses the World Boxing Council title at the same weight. He is also the more celebrated and diversified of the two, having toyed with Hollywood and provided the vocals for a poppish CD.
He's also the betting favorite, currently a minus 230 at Mandalay Bay. Vargas is a plus 190. The primary round proposition bet is 10 1/2, with the "will go" at a minus 130 and the "won't go" at a plus 110.
Vargas says the numbers, as well as De La Hoya's many accolades away from boxing, will mean little once they walk into the ring.
"There's nothing about him that impresses me," he said. "He's going to see someone across from him who is physically stronger than he is, and mentally and spiritually ready to fight.
"I've seen this fight in my mind for a long time now, I've thought about it a lot. And I always win."
The key, as Vargas sees it, is conditioning -- and willpower.
"I took my training to another level," he said. "I'm in the best shape of my life, by far.
"People might not be used to seeing a Mexican ripped, but wait til they see me with my shirt off."
And then there's the matter of determination.
"Oscar should put himself in my position and remember how hungry he once was," Vargas said. "That's how I am right now. There's nothing that he can do that is going to stop me."
But Vargas was stopped by Felix Trinidad in his lone professional loss, Dec. 2, 2000, also at Mandalay Bay. In that slugfest, Vargas was down five times before a 12th-round stoppage that left many fans and observers wondering precisely what the battering may have taken out of him.
"I don't think it hurt me," Vargas said. "I'm young. It's not like I couldn't recover."
Yet the answer to that question remains in doubt and may be one of the reasons De La Hoya has predicted a knockout victory within six rounds. Add in Vargas going down in an ensuing fight with Wilfredo Rivera and then being wobbled by Shibata Flores in his most recent outing (12 months ago) and there's speculation that he could be damaged goods.
Vargas dismisses the innuendo.
"I've learned as I've gone along," he said. "I know how to adapt to different styles and learned the proper way to train. There isn't any doubt that I'm better than ever."
He said the postponement of this fight from May 4, due to De La Hoya suffering a hand injury, only worked to his advantage in that he stayed in his Big Bear, Calif., gym. "You'll be in awe when you see what I bring into the ring," Vargas claimed of his conditioning.
Of course he has always been a handful, in and out of the ring.
The single parent of two children, Vargas was a self-described "street bully" growing up in Oxnard, Calif., who has had more than one run-in with the law. An assault conviction -- he was an accomplice in a golf-club attack on a man -- was the most recent violation, two years ago.
That mistake prompted De La Hoya to call Vargas "bad for boxing," although Vargas' handlers respond by highlighting his strengths, including the fact he has been with a single trainer, manager and promotional firm throughout his career and that he regularly donates to charity causes.
Ironically, Vargas could have signed with Arum and fought alongside De La Hoya under the Top Rank banner.
"We supported him during his amateur career and it cost us $100,000," Arum said. "Vargas had to pay that money back when he signed with Shelly Finkel instead of me as he turned pro, but it's not that I didn't try to sign him.
"The reason I think he didn't sign with me was because I already had Oscar, and he didn't want to feel like a second fiddle."
Could that be the root of Vargas' beef with De La Hoya? If it is -- or if it's some other reported tale, including De La Hoya once laughing at Vargas after he fell in a snowbank at Big Bear -- no one beyond the fighter himself knows for sure. And Vargas isn't saying.
"I'll talk about it after the fight," he said to a pointed question on the subject. Asked if he hates De La Hoya, Vargas balks only slightly.
"No, but I'd call it a strong dislike," he eventually responds.
The only man he hates, it seems, is his father, who he routinely calls a "maggot" for running out on the family when Fernando was a youngster.
But that was long ago, if not far away, and today Vargas is a millionaire on the brink, perhaps, of everlasting stardom.
"I'm living everything I ever dreamed of," he said. "I'm ready to lay it all on the line.
"It's been a long time coming and now it's finally here."
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