Vargas’ Path to Title Bout Started on Streets of Oxnard

Channel surfing one day in his Oxnard home, Fernando Vargas was hit by a wave of excitement.

On the screen before him were a couple of amateur boxers.

The 10-year-old Vargas knew all about fighting. He was already an imposing figure among his peers on the neighborhood streets where he would cock his fists at the slightest provocation.

“Big guys, small guys, I didn’t care,” Vargas said. “I just liked to fight. Fighting was my thing.”

But Vargas, who will fight for his first world title tonight in Atlantic City, N.J., when he challenges International Boxing Federation junior-middleweight champion Yory Boy Campas, couldn’t quite connect his small world of street violence with the bigger picture.

“I saw people like Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson, big-time fighters,” Vargas said. “But I didn’t know how they got there.”

After seeing the television screen that day, he knew. In watching a couple of amateurs trade punches, Vargas saw a path from the streets to the ring. It was a path he was determined to follow.

Asking around, he quickly discovered the nearby La Colonia Youth Boxing Club. Vargas, never at a loss for cockiness, swaggered in along with several other youngsters around his age. The trainers were less than impressed.

All except Eduardo Garcia. When he looked at Vargas, he didn’t see bravado. He saw genuine confidence and character.

“Give him to me for a month,” Garcia said.

It could have turned out to be a tough month. Vargas was matched with a fighter who was a year and a half older, a huge difference at that age. Vargas lost the fight--but none of his confidence.

“It just made me real mad,” Vargas said.

Mad enough to fight his conqueror three more times and win all three fights. Garcia was thrilled. So were the administrators at Oxnard’s Fred Williams Elementary School who no longer had to hand out suspensions to Vargas for fighting.

The streets of Oxnard were somewhat safer, although Vargas still had an occasional altercation, but the ring at La Colonia was now a lot more dangerous for all those young fighters who encountered Vargas there.

Soon, amateur fighters all over the nation knew of him. Before long, it was Vargas who was fighting on television, inspiring others. At 14, Vargas finished second in the Junior Olympics at 132 pounds. A year later, he won that title. At 16, he won a gold medal at the Olympic Festival and became the youngest fighter to win at the U.S. Championships. In 1995, at 139 pounds, he won a bronze medal at the Pam Am Games.

Vargas, who would win 100 of his 105 amateur fights, headed to Atlanta, certain that the ultimate honor of the amateur boxing world, an Olympic gold medal, was within his grasp.

But it slipped away in the second round of competition when Vargas, fighting as a welterweight, lost a controversial decision to Marian Simion of Romania. Those around Vargas claimed he had been robbed by the unfair Olympic scoring system.

Vargas’ once-unshakable confidence was rattled. There was a stumble in the swagger.

“I was crushed,” he acknowledged. “It lasted about a month. But I’m not the type who likes to mope around. I was not going to spend my time asking, ‘Why did this happen?’ I picked myself up and said I was ready for the pros.”

So did others. The International Marketing Group made him a $2-million offer, according to the Vargas camp. The only problem was, IMG wanted Vargas to move to Miami and switch trainers, abandoning Garcia, who is also the trainer of his son, IBF junior-lightweight champion Roberto Garcia, a friend of Vargas’ since childhood.

“It took me about five seconds to say no,” said Vargas of the IMG proposal.

Instead, he signed with Main Events, the organization run by the Duva family. Main events agreed not only to keep Garcia as a trainer, but to allow Vargas to have his first professional fight in Oxnard.

While training for that first fight, Vargas broke his left thumb in training. But after a five-month delay, he got into the ring for the first time as a professional against journeyman Jorge Morales, fighting his 34th professional bout, and knocked out Morales in 56 seconds.

Vargas has won all of his ensuing 13 bouts, all by knockout. Now, five days after his 21st birthday, he will climb into the ring against much stiffer competition. Campas has had 74 fights, winning 72, including 62 by knockout.

Too much too soon?

Ask Vargas and you know the answer you’ll get.

“I think this is the right stage for me to win a world title,” he said. “Campas has been through a lot of wars. He’s strong and he’s hard-nosed. You can throw a lot of punches, but I’ll eat them all up until you get tired.”

Understandable confidence or bravado? Ask Eduardo Garcia and he’ll smile and tell you what he saw 11 years ago in the fierce eyes of a 10-year-old.