by Richard McManus
Fernando Vargas is a ring warrior. He is why we love the sport of professional prize fighting. He has taken on all comers and in defeat he always goes out on his shield. Unfortunately for him, in his biggest fights, his body has always found a way to betray his spirit.
On Saturday night against Shane Mosley his left eye took him places that he just wasn’t prepared to go. Well, that and Shane Mosley’s speed and hard right hand shots.
Shane Mosley scored the 10th round TKO partly because of Vargas’ extremely swollen and grotesque left eye and partly because he out hustled, outworked and out landed Fernando Vargas with big, effective power punches. Both fighters worked the body well, although for Mosley to reach the status he held at 135 as a devastating “power-boxer” he needs to commit to his body attack and have more faith in it.
Beginning early in the fight Mosley landed repeated, powerful and accurate right hands that found a home on Vargas’ eye and to the detriment of his younger foe took up an unwanted and permanent residence. Mosley also landed strong combination from different angles and was able to out quick Fernando. Vargas did some good work inside but was too often beaten to the punch and at times in the middle of the fight was seen reaching with the jab. If Mosley were more of a counter-puncher he may have been able to exploit that Vargas flaw.
To this writer’s semi-educated eye it looked like Mosley was beginning to gain confidence in the latter half of the fight. It looked like Mosley was sensing that he had more in the tank and that based on Vargas’ reputation for slowing down and collapsing late in fights, he would out-last and probably be in a position to break Vargas down, scoring a knockout win. But we’ll never know as Vargas’ eye had other plans and Joe Cortez wisely stopped the action in the 10th.
Vargas mildly protested but seemingly his corner and supporters were in agreement with Cortez on the stoppage as Vargas was the only one in the house unable to see the devastation that has taken place above and around his right eye. If there was a mirror on hand I’m sure Vargas would have at least understood Cortez’s reasoning. Although I can be almost sure that Fernando would have chosen to continue fighting.
There are several things of note that we as the boxing public can take away from Saturday’s showdown. First, Shane Mosley still has skills and speed even at the unnatural weight on 154 lbs. He was quicker than Vargas as was expected. However, Mosley just doesn’t have the pop in his gloves at 154. Hopefully, his handlers will move him back down to 147 for a possible showdown with Mayweather or another contender. Welterweight is a division where Mosley could still do some damage. His fights with Winky Wright and now with Vargas show that his power punch is less effective with the top guys at 154 or 160. He still hits hard, but after being in the ring with the likes of Trinidad and De la Hoya, Vargas was able to weather the power barrage. The downfall for Vargas came in the speed of Mosley and the incredible volume of landed hard punches.
Vargas on the other hand has some even bigger questions to answer. What is out there for him now? Is it worth the effort? For all he has accomplished, it seems that for him to do what he needs to do to get ready for another major fight might not be worth all the risk. He’s never really been the same fighter as he was before the Trinidad fight 5 ½ years ago and his legs even seemed a little shaky in the first round against Mosley. That might be attributable to nerves but my bet is that if he was in with a real banger at 154 on Saturday night, even somebody without Mosley’s skills but with more power, he may have been stopped.
At the time of the stoppage in the 10th round I had the fight scored 87-84, 6-3 for Mosley.