Mayorga gets majority decision over Vargas

What began 20 years ago with an hour walk from his mother’s home in south Oxnard to the La Colonia Boxing Club ended for Fernando Vargas on Friday night at Staples Center.

Only the fighter’s career didn’t end the way he wanted it to with Nicaragua’s brash Ricardo Mayorga sending him into retirement by knocking him down twice to win a brutal 12-round brawl neither man thought would go the distance.

“Absolutely,” Vargas said afterward, “this was my last fight.”

And it was one he could have won, save for a 11th-round knockdown when Mayorga, a three-time world champion, caught an off-balance Vargas with a strong right, sending him to the canvas for the second time.

“I should have jabbed more,” Vargas said. “He’s a good fighter. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been world champion. Those were flash knockdowns. I thought I won the fight.

“[But] I am not going to take anything away from Mayorga. He beat me. He was the better man tonight.”

The respect appeared sincere. Although the men spent the last four months trading insults, with Mayorga challenging Vargas’ manhood and Vargas retaliating by calling Mayorga “a stupid streetfighter,” they shared a warm embrace at a postfight news conference in which Joe Percora, Vargas’ business manager, called Mayorga “a class act.”

Both boxers promised a physical fight and they delivered, delighting the Mexican-flag-waving pro-Vargas crowd by battling toe-to-toe in the middle of the ring from the opening bell.

Fighting for something called the WBC Continental Americas super-middleweight crown, Mayorga charged from his corner and immediately began pelting Vargas with a wild flurry of blows, finally knocking him to the canvas with 20 seconds left in the opening round.

An eccentric 34-year-old brawler with a loud mouth and thunderous fists, Mayorga (28-6-1) again staggered his opponent in the closing minute of the second round before opening a cut over Vargas’ left eye with a hard right early in the third.

But by the fourth round Mayorga, who was jeered lustily when he stepped into the ring wearing a smirk above his camouflage robe and trunks, was clearly beginning to tire, allowing Vargas (26-5) to go on the attack for the first time.

And soon the momentum began to swing.

“Vargas came out with a different style than I anticipated,” Mayorga said. “I adjusted well and was able to land heavy punches. He was faster than I thought. But I stuck with my game plan and put the pressure on him.”

Vargas stole a page from Julio Cesar Chavez’s book, entering the arena wearing rosary beads beneath a cotton peasant shirt, huge sombero and tan trunks bearing the Mexican flag. But he also weighed more than 170 pounds -- more than six pounds over what he weighed in at Thursday.

And he appeared soft and slow after a 16-month layoff as Mayorga, in addition to cutting Vargas above the eye, backed his opponent up with solid body shots.

By the end of the seventh round, blood was spilling from the cut and the swollen eye was beginning to close. But Vargas, whose greatest weapon has always been his heart, didn’t quit.

He hurt the tiring Mayorga with a hard right near the end of the eighth round and the Nicaraguan responded by clutching Vargas, stalling for the bell -- then sucker-punching Vargas after it rang.

Mayorga, returning to the ring for the first time in 18 months and fighting above 158 pounds for the first time in his career, wasn’t about to quit either. Trailing on two of the three judges cards after 10 rounds, he stunned a retreating Vargas with a right hand in the closing seconds of the 11th, knocking him backward to the canvas.

On their final scorecards judges Glenn Trowbridge (114-112) and Max DeLuca (115-111) called the fight for Mayorga while judge David Mendoza ruled it a draw (113-113).

That was enough to give Vargas (26-5), a two-time world champion, his third consecutive loss. But then he really hasn’t been the same fighter since a brutal 12th-round knockout loss to Felix Trinidad in 2000.

He reunited with Roberto Garcia Sr., his original trainer, for Friday’s fight in the hope of going out a winner. Mayorga upset those plans but not Vargas’ plans for retirement -- one he’ll start with a nest egg that could reach $15 million, depending on the pay-per-view numbers. Mayorga was expected to get half that. But he’s not ready to retire.

“I want to keep fighting a few more times at 154 pounds,” he said. “I have a lot of fight left in me.”

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com