Berchelt's Trainer Predicts He Will Tear Francisco Vargas Apart

By Miguel Rivera

Trainer Alfredo Caballero is one hundred percent confident that his pupil Miguel "Scorpion" Berchelt (30-1, 27 KOs) will become the new WBC super featherweight champion on January 28th in Indio, California, when he challenges undefeated titleholder Francis 'Bandido' Vargas (23-0-2, 17 KOs) in an HBO televised main event.

"Miguel is going to tear him apart. I'm positive of that, I do not see another path," he said.

While acknowledging the level and danger of Vargas, Caballero said that the overwhelmed optimism is due to the work he's doing with Berchelt in Hermosillo, Sonora. The veteran trainer and Berchelt himself believe Vargas has taken a lot of punishment in his last two fights, against Takashi Miura and Orlando Salido, and they are catching him at the perfect time.

"We're doing well, I'm happy for Miguel's response in training camp, starting with the last month of preparation. He's in good shape (63 kilos), only four pounds above the super featherweight limit," the trainer added.

The challenger from Cancun is about to conclude what is perhaps the strongest stage of his preparation consisting of three daily training sessions in which he runs to acquire resistance. When he's in the gym - he trains with sparring sessions, strategy and ends off with weights.

"He has already done sessions where there were 10 rounds of sparring and he is already going for 12 round sessions, starting next week," said Caballero.

Miguel, according to his trainer, has become very well acquainted with the people of Hermosillo, to the degree of socializing with his fans and participating at the end of the year with distributing blankets and food in the hospitals of this city.

"Miguel wants to be like the great Mexican champions, he wants to be like [Julio Cesar] Chavez, whose first championship was precisely the one that Berchelt is going to fight for and I think he's going to do it, but we have to keep working," the trainer emphasized.