Vargas Masters His Opponent

When he saw his draw for the U.S. Box-Offs, top-ranked welterweight Fernando Vargas knew his road to this summer’s Olympic Games had become a little more interesting.

The road to Atlanta would take the 18-year-old from Oxnard right through Brandon Mitchem’s hometown. “I thought, ‘Here we go,’ ” Vargas said Friday night. “It made me go out harder.”

Hard enough to ride Mitchem into the ropes seconds after their bout began. Hard enough to elicit plenty of boos from the small but rowdy crowd rooting for Mitchem at the Augusta-Richmond County Civic Center.

And hard enough to survive.

In earning a place on the U.S. team with a 17-14 victory, Vargas used a strong opening round to help hold off the feisty Mitchem, as well as his supporters. It was an unpopular, but accurate, decision.

At least to Vargas.

“I thought the bout was mine,” said Vargas, who won the first round, 6-2, after landing several clean shots. “I got what I wanted.”

Mitchem, who made it through the challengers’ bracket at the Olympic Trials in Oakland after losing his opening bout, thought U.S. Boxing officials got the fighter they wanted: Vargas.

“Fernando’s a heck of a fighter, but I thought I deserved to win,” said Mitchem, who used the emotion of the crowd to finish fast and narrow the gap. “I fought the best fight in my life. But they got who they wanted. They got Oscar De La Hoya.”

For Vargas, it was the latest bump in what has been a tumultuous ride to the Olympics. Last year, Vargas’s amateur career was nearly wiped out after he accepted a loan from sports agents Robert Troy Caron and Don Lukens.

It was only after the Amateur Boxing Assn. repaid the loan that Vargas could see his way was clear to Atlanta. Neither Vargas nor his advisors would talk about the situation Friday. “This is vindication for all he’s been through,” one of fighter’s advisors said.

Vargas wasn’t the only fighter to feel vindicated. After losing badly to Lawrence Clay-Bey at the trials earlier this month, Joseph Mesi came back to stun the world’s super-heavyweight champion. The final count of 26-11 included a standing eight count in the third round.

“I studied the tapes of the last fight the last 10 days and I wanted to prove that wasn’t me,” said Mesi, a 22-year-old college student from Tonowanda, N.Y. “I wasn’t intimidated by him [in Oakland]. But I kind of gave him too much respect. I don’t think he did anything different tonight. I think the difference was me.”

It was the first defeat for Clay-Bey, a 30-year-old corrections officer from Hartford, Conn., in nearly a year. Considering how little he had left at the end of the fight last night, it seemed questionable whether Clay-Bey could come back and beat Mesi today for the final spot on the U.S. team.

“It just shows I’m not invincible like everyone says I am,” said Clay-Bey.

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Olympic Trial Notes

In other bouts Friday, world champion light-heavyweight Antonio Tarver of Orlando, Fla., threw a 17-0 shutout at Anthony Stewart of Chicago. In the most controversial decision of the box-offs, top-ranked Ramases Patterson of River Rouge, Mich., lost on a tiebreaker to Eric Morel of Madison, Wis., after their flyweight bout was called a draw. Said Patterson, who came in as the challenger after losing a 16-15 decision to Morel in the trials, “I won it. You can ask anybody who saw that fight and they’d tell you. They already knew who they wanted to be on the team. They cheated.”