now that Vargas' career is over...

a heart as big as the arena that he was fighting in and always came prepared to do what was necessary to win, even when he lost, he never let himself believe in the ring that he was fighting a lost cause. like someone said, he dared to be great, and although he did come up short on occasion, noone could question his heart or desire to try to be the best. as an olympic gold medalist, he could have had the luxury of riding that medal to the easy route, but that did not seem to be in his character. he gave us a lot of good moments in the ring.

he will go down as a well respected fighter for never shying away from any challenge, but in no way do i believe he belongs anywhere near the hof without buying a ticket. 26-5 is not a hof fighter

 

thanks...but you've only been long enough for 40 posts:yep ESB has alot of good smart writers who'll make your jaw drop...sometimes.:good

 

That's right. I had 6-6 but I gave most of the close rounds to Vargas. Vargas won nothing more than 6 rounds.

 

Great post man. Couldn't have said anyting better...

 

He beat Winky in a questionable one. He lost every big fight he ever had: including the last one to Mayorga. He was a decent Champion nothing more nothing less.

I admire his willingness to seek glory and make the big fights. He was very exciting to watch and I will always admire him. Fernando was good for boxing.

 

Wasn't Quartey a big fight? He beat Ike way more convincingly than DLH.

 

A very good fighter who was thrown in to fight the best much too soon.And that's why he went from a very good fighter to a shot fighter

 

Of course who can be the same after that 12th round beating Oscar gave Ike. That was pretty convincing to me IMO:yep

 

Also, Ike fought only once in 26 months before he faced Vargas.

 

:good nice post man

I wanted Trinidad to kill Vargas, BUT Vargas got my respect for life because of what he put up with for 12 rounds. Just to think every single Trinidad shot landed on Vargas head 99.9% of them probably rung the **** out of his bell. Your head doesn't recover when 20 seconds into the 1st round you're decapitated by one of the best left hooks this sport has ever seen. And to get up at the age of 22 and fight on for TWELVE rounds its unbelievable. The beatdown that Vargas withstood in that fight was probably the biggest show of courage that I've ever seen out of a professional boxer in my life. When you factor in the fact that he was 22 years old..its just unreal. Vargas was a warrior. I always felt something special out of Trinidad Mosley and Vargas, they simply fought anyone at a very young age and they didn't care about the $, they only cared about their pride in that square ring.

 

I 'd have to say no on the HOF. Aside from the Quartey win (which still seems to be a pretty big win in retrospect), he always came up a little short in my mind. I don't think this was out of a lack of talent. Like Tyson, however, for all of his bravado in the ring he had very little discipline to act like a respectable sportsman outside of the same. This overt attention to embracing all of the worst cliches of his upbringing in Oxnard ended up wrecking his career and crippling his ability to cross over to the mainstream like ODLH. Not only did Vargas suffer a career ending back injury from living too fast (he boxed again, but was never the same), but I believe his managers saw him as a commodity with a very short fuse aimed at complete detonation and didn't groom him or give him time to develop and instead exploited his talent with the idea that it wouldn't last forever before his machismo caught up with him. And it did.

An entertaining fighter, no doubt, but unlike Gatti or Ward who achived the very peak of their genetic potential and still fell a little short of top shelf, he could have been so much more.

 

HOF to me is possible in the future considering the other guys who have made it in.

He was the youngest Jr Middleweight Champ ever
2 time Junior Middleweight Champ arguablly 3 cause the Castejllo fight shouldve been a WBC title bout
Wins over Ike Quartey is his prime,Winky Wright,Yory Boy Campas,Raul Marquez,Ray Joval and Javier Castejllo
Involved in 3 on this decades great wars with Ike,Oscar,Tito

 

I wouldn't say Winky was in his prime yet when he fought Vargas

 

you are absolutely right.my bad....doesnt change a thing though.

 

After reading this thread I went and watched both the Vargas-Tito match and ODLH-Vargas match again. Couple of observations from the two fights.

Against Tito Vargas clearly wasn't ready, but showed a ton of heart. Tito was the stronger man and landed the more accurate shots. The second low blow point that was taken away from Tito shouldn't have been a point deduction and neither should the Vargas low blow later on in the fight. In the championship rounds Vargas should have moved and not traded with Tito. For the most part every time they traded Vargas took a beating. I commend Vargas for fighting Tito, but inexperience played a huge part in this fight. I had Tito in front the entire fight.

Against ODLH, Vargas looked much stronger (largely due to steroids) , but he didn't use his size like he should have. I disagree with anyone who says Tito finished Vargas. Vargas fought very well in this fight and showed he still had alot left. I agree on the point the announcers made about Oscar's trunks being too high. Vargas needed to bully Oscar and throw him around. Any time they were in the center of the ring Oscar won easily. Any time they were on the ropes Vargas won easily. I thought Vargas looked alot better in this fight than the Tito fight until the stoppage. I had the fight the same as harold lederman's card ODLH winning rounds 2,4,6,7,8, 10.

To me Fernando Vargas was a great fighter that fell short. Vargas had alot of heart, but Trinidad and ODLH were better fighters. After these fights he was never the same and he never seemed to show the same work ethic as he allowed himself to balloon up in weight in between fights. Also the injuries shortened his career. To me, Vargas could have been a HOF, but falls just short.