Vargas has good, but not great, send-off

At the end, after 12 exhausting rounds of pounding on each other, Ricardo Mayorga and Fernando Vargas celebrated differently, neither really knowing which celebration was for real.

The bell sounded and Mayorga went to his knees. Vargas headed for his corner and the traditional stand-on-the-ropes and cheer routine.

About a minute later, ring announcer Jimmy Lennon validated Mayorga’s victory, a majority decision in which one judge called it a draw and two others called it 114-112 and 115-111 for Mayorga.

It was a good fight, bordering on a great one. Mayorga put Vargas down twice, in the first and in the 11th, and even though neither knockout was a jaw-dropping smasher, the usual two-point difference that judges will mark down in knockdowns was probably the difference.

Vargas has said he will fight no more. He turns 30 in two weeks and has had his share of wars. On this day after the day that we are to give thanks, Vargas should be grateful he got through this one as a decent, but not grand, finale. His take is estimated at $4 million and Mayorga is expected to get about half of that, pending the pay-per-view take.

They labeled this one “The Brawl,” and it pretty much was, at least in the beginning. But it ultimately wasn’t the predicted street fight inside ropes. That quickly went the way of most pre-fight hype when it came down to flat-out boxing and defending.

The fighters didn’t like each other -- really. They drew blood a few months ago during a pre-fight news conference, and Mayorga dragged out his overdone pre-fight routine, insulting the women in the family of his opponent.

The big surprise of the night was that Mayorga was around at the end, and won on points. His style has been to come out wild-eyed, flailing away, looking like a maniac that needs to be caged, not boxed. He made a mess out of Vernon Forrest twice doing that, and he tried with Vargas, especially in the first round.

But as the fight moved on, and Mayorga could see that Vargas had trained for the long haul, he settled into a solid attack-and-counter routine. He did it so well, actually, that his stock in the middleweight divisions undoubtedly will rise because promoters can sell a brawler who can also box.

Vargas, who stayed the course while Mayorga flailed himself into arm fatigue in the early rounds, will be shaking his head for months to come about how he lost this one after undoubtedly doing what his handlers wanted: box and move and wait for that crazy look to leave Mayorga’s eyes and reality to replace it.

In the end, Vargas fought a good fight and merely got caught off balance twice for knockdowns that hurt his scorecard more than they hurt him.

Vargas also got through the middle rounds while his corner got a bad cut over his right eye treated properly. For a while, it appeared that he couldn’t see well when Mayorga threw his right, but as the fight went on, he seemed to handle that.

For the announced crowd of 10,365, it was an entertaining and somewhat unusual night.

In one of the semi-main events, a Russian who lives in Los Angeles now, Roman Karmazin, hit Alejandro Garcia of Tijuana with a left to the body that was so crippling that his follow-up right hand to the jaw was almost unnecessary. Garcia stayed on his hands and knees while he was counted out and was still there so long that a concerned Karmazin came out to check on him himself.

In the next preliminary fight, highly touted Kermit Cintron fought a cling-and-grab boxer named Jesse Feliciano, who took so many shots that it was a miracle he was still on his feet. He was so much on his feet that, after the ninth-round bell, he inexplicably followed Cintron to his corner, acting like he wanted to chat.

Then, in the 10th, Cintron unloaded with such a barrage that the referee correctly stopped it. As Feliciano was walked slowly to his corner by the referee, Cintron sank to his knees in celebration, than bent to his back, then rolled over on his side and suddenly started acting like he was seriously hurt.

Now, as Feliciano stood and Cintron writhed in pain, the only absolute in boxing -- the guy still standing at the end is the winner over the guy down on the canvas -- was being contradicted. Eventually, it was revealed that Cintron had injured his right hand with the first right he made contact in the first round, and the pain had just set in.

Nobody seemed to know whether his next fight would be in a boxing ring or on Broadway.

Still, none of that was more bizarre than the way that Mayorga beat Vargas. He out-boxed him. He went a full 12 rounds. He minimized the showboat stuff and actually participated in the sweet science. Out of a thug, a boxer was born.

Who knew?

In the ring, a stunned, exhausted Vargas answered the first wave of interviews afterward in a semi state of shock.

“Tonight, he was the better man,” Vargas said.

He can probably swallow that. But the better boxer?

That could make for a bitter start to retirement.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com.

For previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.