CAN VARGAS RE-WRITE THE ENDING?

June 29, 2006 - by Ron Borges

Fernando Vargas is a difficult man to convince. Whether that will work to his advantage or not come July 15 against Shane Mosley remains to be seen.

When the two were last together, Vargas' left eye was shut tighter than a promoter's wallet, the cause of which remains debateable in his opinion. At the time referee Joe Cortez stepped in and waived Vargas to his stool as the 11th round was about to begin the two-time junior middleweight champion seemed the stronger fighter despite his vision problems, having slowed Mosley down and won the previous round to throw the fight's outcome into doubt. Vargas claims those were clear indicators that the finish would have been different had Cortez allowed him to pursue his vicious trade as well as Mosley's fading legs rather than intercede at the most pivotal moment of the fight, just as it was beginning to turn to his advantage.

Mosley, not surprisingly, thinks that's all nonsense, especially the idea Vargas has begun to voice that the damage to his eye was not the result of Mosley's right hand but rather his head. While the two were often at close quarters with Mosley grabbing on the inside when Vargas tried to use his superior strength, anyone with even one eye open could see that Mosley did consistent damage with sharp right hands, a punch Vargas too often blocked with the side of his face rather than his glove.

To answer that, Vargas claims to have changed headgear in training camp. If that's his only solution to the problem posed by Mosley's right hand he could easily suffer the same fate, a fact Mosley is happy to point out.

"They were overhand rights all night,'' Mosley (42-4, 36 KO) said of what caused the damage that halted a fight so closely contested he led by only one point on two judges' cards after 10 rounds while Vargas led by the same score on the third. "View the tape. It's obviously right hands. There's no need to go back and forth about it.

"It (Vargas' claims butts did the damage) gives me more confidence. His team is giving him false hope and false pride and not telling him the truth. I'd be a little worried if they were telling him the truth.''

That latter statement seemed an odd one for a guy who claims he will win the second fight in "a breeze,'' but it might be a statement that proves more honest than Mosley might have liked. The fact is he did appear to be fading after a fast start in the first fight, opening an early lead that the relentelss Vargas had begun to whittle down as much by his refusal to be dissuaded from walking forward and scoring at close quarters as by his own skills. It was clear late in the fight that Vargas was the stronger man, which was predictable since 154 is his natural weight while Mosley was once a lightweight champion, and that Vargas was the harder puncher, although Mosley can counter this his handspeed remains superior and allowed him to carry the day.

The questions then are twofold for Vargas. Can he pick up where he left off when Cortez stopped the action while avoiding paying the kind of consequences from those right hands he suffered in the first fight or does he really believe the way to solve the problem is to let himself be hit in the face during sparring, as he postulated recently in a rather odd analysis of his pre-fight preparation for the rematch?

"I'm sparring with regular headgear this time,'' Vargas (27-3, 23 KO) said when asked about needed adjustments he's been making. "Not one with a whole face bar to protect your face from punches. Your body and face can get used to being hit. They can get used to feeling leather. I don't think it was used to it the last time.''

Maybe one's face can get used to feeling leather but that doesn't mean it won't protest at the process and begin to swell. Vargas' contention that the swelling that ended the first fight with Mosley prematurely was more an issue of machismo or muscle memory is ridiculous on its face and only slightly more preposterous than the notion that it was headbutts not fists that battered the left side of his face into an ugly, blinding knot.

He may however believe the eye damage was attributeable as much to the occasional collision of heads on the inside as it was to those right hand but he and trainer Danny Smith have been around too long not to realize that to change the outcome of the first meeting with Mosley they have to find a way to avoid those rights not block them with a reinforced noggin. As solutions go, postulating that toughening one's face in sparring is the answer would qualify you to take over hurricane flood control for FEMA but it won't help you much in the boxing ring.

The encouraging point for Vargas fanatics, who are legendary for their ferocious support of and belief in their champion, is that Smith, while publicly backing Vargas' concerns about Mosley's head, has also said he knows his fighter needs to use his jab more effectively as he works his way inside and has been working on having Vargas slip underneath the right hand more this time rather than trying to block it with hands not as fast as Mosley's..

"I'd like him to pick up his punch count and throw certain punches that we've worked on,'' Smith said. "When you box Shane, if you try and stay away from him he's very fast and quick and very comfortable with distance. We have to eliminate the distance and make him fight. A lot of it is going to be measuring.''

In other words, Smith knows Vargas has to develop a better understanding of distance to realize when he's in danger of being popped in the eye. He also knows he must be more vigorous when moving inside rather than simply walking in and acceptig those right hands in exchange for getting close enough to land his more powerful blows.

That Smith willingly acknowledges that his 28-year-old fighter is not quite what he was before his spectacularly painful defeats at the hands of Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya is also, in an odd way, important because it indicates Smith knows what he's working with and how best to use it to defeat Mosley.

"He's not shot but he's not the same guy of old,'' Smith said of Vargas. "He'll perform well because Mosley's not a real big guy and Fernando can really put a lot of pressoure on a guy like that and be comfortable.''

Vargas altered his training regimen for the rematch, abandoing hardcore weight work to do more sports specific forms of resistence training designed to improve his speed and his ability to follow Smith's demands for double and triple jabs and a stepped up pace of attack earlier in the fight. Although their fight plan still revolves around Vargas tearing Mosley apart on the inside, Smith has him using his jab more to get into position and concentrating on getting underneath Mosley's right hand rather than trying to block it or simply take it to get into punching position. As for his fighter's changed headgear, Smith never mentioned it, which frankly should come as a relief for Vargas fans because unless he's wearing headgear into the ring at the Mandalay Bay Events Center stopping punches with his face will not be a productive counter to Mosley's attack.

What may be, though, is Vargas' hunger to win this fight. He is now close to becoming a latter-day Thomas Hearns or Joe Frazier, valiant warriors who lost too many of their biggest matches. What is Hearns most remembered for? His first fight loss to Sugar Ray Leonard and his eight minutes with Marvin Hagler that ended with him carried back to his corner after being counted out.

Frazier, great as he was, was battered by both Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, going 1-4 against them and paying a high price in pain and contusions in those matches. Although he would never admit it, Vargas understands if he adds a second loss to Mosley to the ones against De La Hoya and Trinidad his fistic fate will be sealed with Hearns and Frazier, a notch below the best fighters of his time.

In case he missed that point however, Mosley's promoter, Richard Schaeffer, was happy to point it out recently when he said, "He's trying to downplay Shane's performance. That's typical Vargas. His typical pattern.

He probably still thinks he won the fights with Oscar and Trinidad. His legacy is on the line. If he loses this fifght too what was he? A guy who sold a lot of tickets.''

There are worse things that can be said about you than that but Schaeffer has a valid point. If Vargas wants to be remembered as something more than a fighter with a warrior's heart and a loyal following he has to do more than fight bravely and with great machismo. He has to find a way to win.

Since it's unlikley he'll ever get a second chance with De La Hoya or Trinidad, this rematch is his moment. July 15 will decide the arc of his career, defining whether it will be one people remember for what he did with it or merely for the nights he ended up on the wrong side of bruising outcomes.

Having already said this is his last fight at 154 because of the growing difficulty of making that weight at nearly 29 years old, Fernando Vargas must understand he is not likely to again be in with a man smaller than himself, one he can bully backwards and whom is not nearly as heavy handed as he is. This fight, then, is his moment, perhaps his last one on the biggest stage, unless you feel there's a reason to believe he could find a way to beat middleweight champion Jermain Taylor, who would tower over him.

What bodes well is his belief that even with one eye he was in position to win the first fight when Cortez intervened at the insistence of optometrists from coast to coast. Being overly protective of that eye, he insists, is not necessary. As long as he understands learning from his mistakes is, he may be on to something.

"If I saw Shane like that, with one eye, I would have gone for broke but he respected what I carry in my left and my right hand,'' Vargas said.

"I was still winning the fight with one eye. I wasn't on the ropes getting pummeled. When they stopped it I was pressuring him. I was still winging shots.

"There will always be critics but they can't say I'm finished. With one eye he was the one who was fading. I understand (stopping it) if I was on the ropes and he was punishing me. All respect to him. But he was the one fading. I could see him across the ring with one eye practically laying out (on his stool). I thought, 'I got him.' He was dead tired. It was absolutely frustrating. What we need is just to make a few small adjustments''

To avoid a repeat of that kind of frustration Fernando Vargas must understand the importance of that last statement and of tw things. The first is that this is his chance to erase the stinging memory and bitter taste of big fights lost to too much bravery and not enough thinking. The second is that his face is no different from anyone else's. It doesn't react well to being needlessly hit.