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Fernando Vargas Jr. Here To Shock The World | Canelo vs Crawford
Fernando Vargas Jr. Has Big Plans To Show The World What He Is Capable Of When He Faces Callum Walsh In The Co-Main Event Of Canelo vs Crawford In Las Vegas
Let’s get this out of the way when it comes to Saturday’s co-main event between Fernando Vargas Jr. and Callum Walsh: these are the fights we don’t usually get in boxing anymore. Two unbeaten prospects with a combined 31-0 record (26 knockouts) competing in a fight that they could have let “marinate” for a few years like many rising stars do.
Not Vargas and Walsh. They want to fight, and they’re going to with the world watching at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas before headliners Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford make the walk.
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“It's just something that excites me,” said the 17-0 Vargas when asked his reasoning for taking this matchup. “I know big fights excite me, and I feel if you continue to raise the standard, you continue to raise the fighter. I'll show up and show out. So this was something that I've talked to my team about. I've been wanting to fight Callum, and I've been talking to my manager about it since before my last fight with (Gonzalo Gaston) Coria. He (Coria) fought Janibek (Alimkhanuly), and they thought this guy was going to blow me out the water and that my dad was just cherry picking these fights. You know what? He found out otherwise. So I'm coming in the best shape of my life. I know it may sound cliche, but this has been the best camp I've ever had. Just being the underdog is the role that I'm taking. And I feel that when push comes to shove, I have to get the knockout.”
That fourth-round knockout of Argentina’s Coria was an eye opener to many who previously saw Vargas’ raw talent but believed he needed more experience to get to the world class level. But he’s here on the biggest card of 2025, and there’s no turning back. That’s just the way he wants it, and that’s also in his DNA as the son of beloved former world champion Fernando Vargas Sr. In a world where a lot of folks’ bark is worse than their bite, “El Feroz” was a real fighter, a kill or be killed guy who faced the best of his era, including Oscar De La Hoya, Felix Trinidad, Ike Quartey, Winky Wright, and Shane Mosley. So you would assume that if you’re his son, boxing isn’t a choice, but a requirement. Fernando Jr. says that wasn’t the case with him.
Fernando Vargas Jr. Fight Week Interview | Canelo vs Crawford
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Fernando Vargas Jr. Fight Week Interview | Canelo vs Crawford
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“In all reality, I picked the game up late,” he said. “I started around 17 years old. Before that, it was just something that my dad did. I never really even put my mind around how big. Me, as a kid, I just was like, okay, we're going to go into the fights, my dad's fighting. But as you get older, you realize the magnitude of the star that my dad was and the legendary fights that he put on. And my dad had college paid for. I went to UNLV for a little bit, and I was an all-around athlete. I played basketball, I played football, and went around the nation playing basketball as a kid growing up. So I didn't have goals or dreams or aspirations to become a world champion per se, but I was always around it. It wasn't until I was 17 years old that our family opened a gym.”
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Junior went to the gym to stay active and lose a few pounds. We know what happened next.
“I ended up falling in love with it, and my dad ended up starting to train me.”
Vargas Sr. noticed his son showing up more and more to the gym, and he decided to test him.
“Hey, why don't you spar this guy?” said dad to his middle son.
“I go in there, I spar him, I drop him,” Junior recalls. “Granted, he may not have experience, I don't have experience, but I dropped a guy with headgear and 16-ounce gloves. The next week, he goes, ‘I'm going to have you spar someone else.’ Then I come back, drop the other guy, and from there my dad pulled me to the side and said, ‘Son, I won’t condone you fighting because I know what it entails. But if you are going to do this with all your heart, I'm supporting you.’”
Now the whole family’s involved, with Fernando Sr. in the corner and brothers Emiliano (15-0, 13 KOs) and Amado (13-0, 6 KOs) doing their thing in the family business. And with that Vargas blood running through his veins, the 28-year-old southpaw isn’t rattled at all by the magnitude of this event.
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“I've been around this energy since I was a little kid,” Vargas Jr. said. “The oohs and the ahs and the audience, just everything about the fight game. My father going into training camps, I would be seeing the sacrifices that he'd do before fights. So I'm used to this energy, but now that it's for me, of course it's going to be obviously different, but I'm more excited than anything. I want to demonstrate to the world what I'm about, and I truly believe that the start of my legacy will be started September 13th. I'm excited to demonstrate to the world why they're sleeping on me.”
That last sentence is an interesting one, because Vargas has done everything asked of him since turning pro in 2020, and he has the perfect record to show it. But in his eyes, he’s seen as the B-side of this co-main event against Ireland’s Walsh. And rather than be insulted while sulking about it, Vargas appears to embrace that role, with every intention to emphatically silence any doubters this Saturday.
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“September 13th takes me from somebody's son into my own man, and I feel that I'll get respected from the fight fans because they know Callum's a real guy,” said Vargas. “This fight is really going to give the fight fans a taste of what I know that I have. So it couldn't have been a bigger opportunity for me. It's such a privilege to fight on a Canelo card, let alone being the co-main. So I'm training so hard to show to the world what I'm capable of, and it's going to put me in the top 10 in the world.”
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