by David P. Greisman
Photo ©Ed Mulholland/FightWireImages.com
The trash talk flowed over into pure vitriol. The pre-fight build-up included a press conference skirmish, one in which the parties involved and the bad blood between them left little doubt as to the legitimacy of what occurred. There had to be a reason. One would imagine that a belt was on the line. Or perhaps their fight was expected to produce a result important enough to alter the entire landscape of the Sweet Science.
“This is about pride.”
Those four words, spoken by Fernando Vargas on a conference call earlier this month, summed up everything about this Friday’s pay-per-view bout against Ricardo Mayorga.
It’s been more than a year since Vargas last fought. More than a year since Shane Mosley sent Vargas to the canvas with a single left hook, handing “El Feroz” his second straight loss to “Sugar Shane.” After a long layoff brought about by health issues, Vargas had returned to his glory days of fighting in the main event against boxing’s biggest stars. But just like his bouts against Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya, Vargas would come up short.
“I wasn’t happy, and I wasn’t myself after my last fight with Mosley,” Vargas said. “I would have wanted that to be a winner, and I would have walked away then.”
For a fighter, the biggest uncertainty is knowing just how much he has left. In his prime, Vargas was a prodigy, a 21-year-old who was only 14 fights into his career when he first captured a junior middleweight title. Vargas would follow up with wins over Winky Wright and Ike Quartey, building momentum toward a slugfest with Felix Trinidad. And while Trinidad won, Vargas went out like a warrior.
Time has passed. Vargas wants the same honor for the end of his career, though this time in victory instead of defeat.
When Trinidad and De La Hoya came back to the ring after extended sabbaticals, each chose Mayorga as his opponent. Mayorga was a measuring stick with a foul mouth attached to a head that rarely ever moved. The trash talk would flow until Trinidad and De La Hoya forced him to shut up.
He was perfect for Vargas. And that idea was enough to get Mayorga talking.
“Vargas made a very big mistake picking this fight to be his farewell fight,” Mayorga told the media assembled at an open workout last week. “If he wanted to retire, he should not have taken a fight with me. He is not going to retire with a victory. He is going to lose and embarrass himself.
“Vargas is going to be a coward and run from the very beginning,” he said. “I don’t plan to wait around for him to fight. I’ll be looking to knock him out in the early rounds.”
Them’s be fighting words. Not that Vargas minds.
“Mayorga is a stupid fighter, you know what I mean?” Vargas said on the conference call. “He’s the type of fighter that comes in with stupid shots, and that’s perfect, because the sparring partners that I have are coming in with looping, wide, crazy shots, and they mix it up.
“He’s a jackass. He doesn’t think about what he says. He just spews things, whatever comes out of his mouth and whatever comes up to his head,” Vargas said. “I’m going to remind him. When I knock him down, I’m going to tell him to get up. I’m going to tell him to get up and remember what he said. Remember all the stuff you said, that he’s going to do this and he’s going to do that. People are going to be crying, and he’s going to be crying.”
Vargas is counting on what he believes is a combination of superior skill, smarts and size. The bout will be contested at 166 pounds, a catch-weight that would appear to give the naturally bigger Vargas the advantage over the former welterweight champion. Mayorga, however, makes up for any perceived deficiencies with a wealth of hubris.
“In any weight class, I’m stronger than him,” Mayorga said on the conference call. “This is all about the hormones that you have in your body, and I have too many men’s hormones in my body, and he doesn’t. He has some girl’s hormones in his body, so I’m stronger than him, no matter what.
“I don’t like the guy. I really don’t like the attitude of the guy,” he said. “I really don’t like him. I am going to knock him out, and even his wife is going to come up to the ring and have pictures with the real champion, and that is going to be me.”
The feelings are mutual.
“I don’t like anything about Mayorga,” Vargas told the press at an open workout last week. “He has a face only a mother gorilla could love. I’m going to beat the [poop] out of him.
“I’ve never really hated anyone this much since I fought Ross Thompson,” he said. “Mayorga has a big mouth and I’m going to shut it for him.”
There is no belt on the line. The result won’t alter the entire landscape of the Sweet Science. But the bout won’t be fought for naught, not when pride is on the line. Pride is everything, and Fernando Vargas and Ricardo Mayorga will brawl for it all.
The 10 Count
1. The World Boxing Council’s mandate last week ordering a rematch between Joel Casamayor and Jose Armando Santa Cruz is the best possible path for the lightweight division – should the two combatants actually meet in the ring again to amend for Casamayor’s horribly controversial Nov. 10 split decision victory.
After an aesthetically displeasing performance that featured more clinching than punching, Casamayor’s “Ring Magazine” 135-pound championship holds far less weight than ever before. Instead, many now place Juan Diaz in the division’s number one slot in recognition of his three unified titles and his recent wins over Acelino Freitas and Julio Diaz.
With Casamayor’s presence suddenly diminished, the road seems clear for a bout between Juan Diaz and David Diaz, the winner of which would hold all four major sanctioning body belts. And after being jobbed by two seemingly apparently inept judges (and barely favored by the third), Santa Cruz deserves a shot at revenge.
2. Joan Guzman’s wide points win Saturday over Humberto Soto places the World Boxing Organization titlist in the unfortunate position of third-best junior lightweight.
At any other time, Guzman’s performance against touted dark house Soto would have sent the Dominican fighter toward the forefront of the 130-pound weight class. But when popular demand is calling for the long-awaited rematch between Juan Manuel Marquez and Manny Pacquiao, Guzman is, to mix metaphors, a third wheel on the outside looking in.
Unless.
Unless Marquez-Pacquiao 2 doesn’t happen. And only if the aforementioned Diaz-Diaz lightweight unification is signed.
Pacquiao is a superstar who sells tickets and pay-per-views. As such, his name is oft bandied about alongside those of potential opponents. The Filipino Firebomber could leave behind the junior lightweight division for matches at 135 with David Diaz, who like Pacquiao is promoted by Top Rank, or Juan Diaz, whose style would guarantee an all-out action bout.
Marquez has said he would be willing to follow Pacquiao five pounds north. If he doesn’t, Marquez-Guzman would be a highly anticipated collision of skilled boxers.
3. Jermain Taylor’s split with Emanuel Steward reflects either a philosophical disagreement between the fighter’s team and the Hall of Fame trainer or a lack of confidence within the former middleweight champion himself.
Taylor and Steward worked together for four fights: a draw with Winky Wright, less-than-impressive wins over Kassim Ouma and Cory Spinks, and September’s knockout loss at the steel fists of Kelly Pavlik. Taylor had Pavlik down and hurt in the second round, but Pavlik roared back to score a seventh-round stoppage.
Taylor’s rematch with Pavlik is scheduled for Feb. 16. To change trainers with such a big fight only three months away, Taylor must either be so sure he will have a formula that works or he’s looking for a change that will ensure victory this time around. Then again, two other Steward fighters – welterweight beltholder Kermit Cintron and heavyweight titlist Wladimir Klitschko – are slated to appear the same month as Pavlik-Taylor 2. With Taylor’s career on the line, he needs to be sure his trainer will be there to focus on him.
4. Hasim Rahman continued his comeback last week with a 10th-round technical knockout of late replacement Zuri Lawrence.
Rahman has now won four in a row since losing his heavyweight title last year to Oleg Maskaev, the winning streak consisting of a lackluster decision over Taurus Sykes and stoppages of Dicky Ryan, Cerrone Fox and Lawrence.
Lawrence, who not long ago had his chin smashed in matches with Calvin Brock and Dominick Guinn, wasn’t necessarily too willing to play the part of designated opponent for Rahman. A sixth-round knockdown sent Lawrence through the ropes and out of the ring, but he was able to make it back before the count of 20. Rahman scored the victory four rounds later, holding up the slim chance that the former heavyweight champion will contend once again.
5. Poor Rahman. I imagine he saw Lawrence getting back into the ring after that sixth-round knockdown and could think nothing but “Oh, that’s how it’s done!”
6. With all the rumors about Oscar De La Hoya’s next opponent – would it be Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton, Manny Pacquiao or a rematch with Floyd Mayweather? – who would have imagined that the person the Golden Boy will soon face off against is Milana Dravnel?
That’s right, the saga that unleashed upon the public photos showing De La Hoya in various compromising poses and outfits has resurfaced some seven weeks after Dravnel, who was seen in some of the pictures, said she could not personally verify their authenticity.
Dravnel is suing De La Hoya for $100 million, claiming she was forced to sign a contract neither to sell nor talk about the photos any further after she had sold some photos for just $70,000 and then went on national television to discuss them, according to various reports. Dravnel claims she has been defamed, defrauded and emotionally distressed, as well as interference with the contract she signed.
This case, it seems, will drag on.
7. Sticking with the offbeat litigation, promoter Don King is facing a lawsuit from his former cook, Kevin J. Barnes, who claims the fuzzy-haired one didn’t pay him overtime from December 2006 through August 2007, according to tabloid Web site TMZ.com.
My only question: Will this go to trial, or will the next flag the patriotic King waves be a white one?
8. In other news involving promotional misbehavior, Dino Duva’s suspension for his actions during the Oct. 6 battle between heavyweights Samuel Peter and Jameel McCline has been commuted, according to a press release from Duva Boxing.
Duva, Peter’s promoter, had apparently made multiple attempts at peeking at the judges’ scorecards during the bout, despite warnings for him to stop. In New York, only state athletic commission members are allowed to look at the scorecards during a fight.
The New York State Athletic Commission had originally suspended Duva for six months and fined him $10,000. While the fine will stick, the suspension is gone, replaced by a probationary period, thereby allowing Duva to be involved with Peter’s Feb. 2 challenge of heavyweight titlist Oleg Maskaev.
“I am very happy that they lifted the suspension and extremely sorry for what happened,” Duva said in the press release. “Now we can move on and attempt to conduct as much business as possible in New York.”
9. And now an update on Joey Gilbert, the “Contender” first-season quarterfinalist who tested positive for six different banned substances in drug tests issued before and after his Sept. 21 first-round stoppage of Charles Howe.
The laundry list of substances Gilbert tested positive for included the steroid stanozolol metabolite, methamphetamine, amphetamine, nordiazepam, oxazepam and temazepam. As a result, the Nevada State Athletic Commission temporarily suspended Gilbert pending a hearing in front of the commission.
That hearing was to have come last week, but instead it was delayed after the positive methamphetamine result didn’t repeat itself in a second urine sample, according to the Nevada Appeal. Interestingly enough, Gilbert tested positive again for steroids in a private test taken performed to the hearing.
Gilbert’s potential penalties include a lengthening of his suspension, revocation of his boxing license, erasure of his win over Howe and levying of a fine up to his entire $25,000 purse, according to earlier reports.
10. Couldn’t they just give Gilbert the Barry Bonds treatment? I can see it now: Joey Gilbert KO1 Charles Howe*.
David P. Greisman’s weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com