How good was Fernando Vargas?

He was a great fighter. Probably better head to head rather than legacy
in my opinion. Former world champ. Definitely check him out, one of
My favorite fights is DeLaHoya vs Vargas if you can watch the whole fight do so.

 

Very good fighter, however I always feel that Vargas was rushed a bit too quick when he was younger which affected his career.

 

fulfilledish...in terms of talent but for such a short period. was a huge ppv attraction. i wasnt in to boxing when i was 11 years old but i knew bruno, tyson, vargas, ali, trinidad.

world champion, ppv main-eventer level. raw aggression mixed with good solid boxing skills that he can rely on when the going got tough. tough fighter to beat to brawl with and a bit tough to box with because good jab and long right hand. but mosley, trinidad, oscar just used the jab to keep him at bay then counter combinations when he started to drill in.

fights to watch campas, thompson, quartey. then watch him post 2000. trinidad, oscar, joval, mosley. you see this sharp decine in technique and just face first pressure.

quartey rematch, david ried, bouduani, harry simon, kofi jantuah, daniel santos, joppy....maybe hopkins.


got caught with roids and became just a brawler.

think he could of done well, martinez would beat im but form the looks he is in a good poisition to get some solid wins. got to remember that 154 had oscar/shane/tito. who where the big three. arguably if mosley fought shane we would of had another fantastic 4.

 

Very good fighter. Not great or HOF to me, but very very good and a great heart. His heart was his best quality and his confidence.

 

Good fighter, had a lot of potential. I think he could have gone a bit further than he did if he was managed a bit better and was given a bit more time to develop before he jumped into those big money fights against top fighters. If he'd been given that time then maybe he could have done more and had a bit more longevity than he did.

 

yeah I agree. a little better matchmaking also. And he had so much heart and confidence. Thing he didn't do well is box and use the ring and work on defense. He kept his feet wide apart and liked to get into brawls a little, and his chin was not the best for the style he liked, and he had no backup plan to box and use the ring when he was losing the brawl and getting tired. But his heart and confidence and fighting spirit I loved to watch. Almost the opposite of Floyd Mayweather or Roy Jones who had the skills but not as much of the heart.

 

Solid fighter, over hyped when he was on his streak in a mostly weak division, but solid nonetheless.Great fun to watch.

Would make for great competitive fights with other solid on their day 154 fighters like Hilton, Carlos Santos, Drayton, Aquino, Rosi, Braxton, hard rock green, Kudo, Mosley, JCV, Hope, Wajima, Shotgun Albarado etc

 

Buster Drayton vs. Vargas. What a fight. Even Matthew Hilton vs. Fernando is a good fight. Fernando would have to be very careful of the Hilton left hook, which I thought was very underrated.

 

Never really recovered "career-wise" from the "ball shot" Trindad gave him when Vargas had the fight won and was about to TKO Tito.

His management rushed him.....but he was still a very good fighter.

 

He was a good fighter.

Vargas had pretty quick hands. He punched to the body with authority. He was more heavyhanded than anything. Big heart. Decent skill set.

He had a good chin up to a point. Vargas biggest flaw and the one that got him retired was his inability to integrate his offense with his defense. When he wanted to he could slip and roll with shots pretty well. It was when he was on the offensive that he became a sitting duck.

He did have an impressive win over Ike Quartey. Quartey had beaten DLH in many peoples minds and Fernando was much more effective against that common opponent.

At the end of the day his career was a success because he made a ton of $$ and people rememeber his fights being exciting. I got respect for the way he fought.

 

Quartey was rusty as could be when he took on Fernando though.Not sharp by his best standard at all, though still a solid enough scalp for Vargas.

Good point about him not being able to integrate things well, that's been slugger Shane's big problem as well, but Vargas didn't have the same level of physical gifts as Shane.I don't see him as having good handspeed though, albeit this kind of thing is always highly debatable by degrees.I thought it was a certain slowness that seemed to cost him at times against Tito and Wright in exchanges.That first left hook counter against a slow jab when he was trying to box Tito etc.

 

A flawed fighter, but probably one that could have made himself look better than he was like a lot of guys do today by stage managing his career and staying clear of the guys that could foil him.

That said, I don't think he had the discipline to train in the way needed to carve out a long career. That also was part of his downfall.

At his best he was a very good fighter. Could beat the likes of Mayweather, Mosley, Forrest, Whitaker and Martinez at 154.

I'm a big fan of Winky Wright's but I felt Vargas did enough to draw with him in that fight. Don't consider it a bad decision like a lot of other people do.