By Ryan Burton, photo by Chris Farina
Francisco "El Bandido" Vargas (23-0-1) faces former champion Orlando "Siri" Salido (43-13-3) Saturday evening at the StubHub Center in Carson, Calif. The bout will headline a HBO Boxing After Dark doubleheader.
The 31-year-old Vargas captured the WBC super featherweight title in dramatic fashion last November, stopping Takashi Miura in BoxingScene.com's 2015 Fight of the Year.
Training for his first title defense got off to a rough start when the Mexico City, Mexico native tested positive for the steroid Clenbuterol. Vargas quickly declared his innocence, citing contaminated beef as the culprit. Clenbuterol is commonly used in Mexico to beef up livestock. Vargas has passed every test since then.
After the positive test, Vargas and his team quickly moved their training camp to Southern California. He said even with the disruption that he has had a very strong camp.
"Training has been good with part in Mexico and part of it in California. It was a tough camp. We trained in the mountains and I always train very hard. We had sparring that fight very similar to the style of Orlando Salido," said Vargas.
"My camp changed a little bit because of the high altitude in Mexico City which is a lot higher than that in Los Angeles. The altitude helps with conditioning but its been a good camp with great sparring partners."
Most fans and experts alike feel that the Vargas-Salido matchup has no almost no chance of being anything less than exciting. Vargas himself agrees with that assessment.
"I think it is good to be a very exciting fight. Salido is a fighter who is known to come forward and always comes to fight. I an coming to leave it all in ring and will make sure there is no doubt (that I win). The fans should really enjoy the fight," Vargas told BoxingnScene.com.
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