Strategist Vargas beats Baba on Texas Station fight card

Dean Juipe

Monday, June 9, 2003 | 8:34 a.m.

Ricardo Vargas is the type of fighter who has earned the fans' respect. He's a veteran who fights regularly and always displays a skill level that meets or exceeds his opponent's.

Yet Vargas isn't a big hitter. In fact, the knock on him is his lack of knockout power.

But he takes the critique in stride, saying, as he did Sunday evening after a decision victory against Alex Ali Baba in the main event of a Dan Goossen-promoted card at the Texas Station in North Las Vegas, that it's his style that allows him to win.

"I'm like Oscar (De La Hoya)," he said through an interpreter. "He's not a big puncher, but he uses his brain.

"That's my style, too, to be intelligent in the ring."

Winning the 12-round bantamweight fight with Ali Baba with a certain ease, Vargas improved to 35-9-3 (only 11 wins by knockout). The judges had him ahead by 8, 6 and 6 points; the Sun card had him up 118-110.

There were no knockdowns or close calls in the bout, although Ali Baba suffered a nasty cut near his left eye as the result of an unintentional 11th-round head butt.

"He was coming forward like that, so my whole strategy was to be careful," Vargas said. "I wanted to watch his head and watch for one punch, his left hook."

Vargas can take the fight as a mission accomplished.

"I made it look easy," he said, a pleasant smile creasing his well-worn face.

Goossen would like to match Vargas with one of the reigning bantamweight champions, yet that could be a difficult chore logistically, in that all three of them live outside the United States.

Vargas, 31, is ranked in the top 12 by each of the three major organizations and probably deserves a title shot, given the outcome of his highest profile fight to date. Back in 1995 he settled for a technical draw with Johnny Tapia in a nontitle fight in Las Vegas.

He disposed of Ali Baba by staying busy and twisting and holding in those rare instances when trouble may have been lurking. Ali Baba, who dropped to 20-4, got off to a slow start and only made a competitive fight of it in the mid to latter rounds.

He was paid $6,000, while Vargas received $12,000.

Vargas was a minus-270 betting favorite in the sports book at Texas Station, with Ali Baba a plus-210 underdog.

Two other fights were part of the televised portion of the Fox Sports Net card and each had their moments. Robert Guerrero, 11-0, knocked out Jose Luis Tula, 15-9-2, 90 seconds into their scheduled 10-round featherweight fight when referee Robert Byrd was late in interceding, allowing Guerrero to batter Tula after he was all but down in a corner. And in the other fight, middleweights Miguel Espino, 9-0-1, and Rigoberto Plascencia, 5-3-1, went toe to toe for six full rounds until Espino emerged with a majority decision victory.