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Quote of the Year — Fernando Vargas on promoting MMA fights
By Zach Arnold | February 14, 2009

So, he’s promoting a mixed boxing/MMA event tonight in Primm, Nevada. The Las Vegas Sun asked him for comments on why he decided to get involved in promoting a mixed card.
“Of course I love boxing. How do you think I got all these scars on my face?” Vargas said with a big smile.
“But I love to see a street fight and that’s what MMA is, is a legalized street fight.”
…
“So take your wife, your girlfriend, your mistress, whatever it is, go and watch a rumble downstairs. Then go upstairs with your sweetheart or significant other and have another rumble on St. Valentine’s Day.”
If you read the LV Sun article, you’ll notice included in the post is a video interview with Fernando promoting his show.
Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 3 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Fernando Vargas is a fighter who makes me think of an interesting point regarding the Antonio Margarito scandal.
Fernando Vargas is one of those fighters whose life and career, in the eyes of many boxing observers, was truly and dramatically altered by a single fight. And I mean that alot of people, including myself, felt that Vargas was “not the same” after the fight with Felix Trinidad.
Now the reason I mention this is because Trinidad was of course caught using illegal handwraps by none other than Nazim Richardson before his fight with Bernard Hopkins…only two fights after Trinidad’s destruction of Vargas.
The fight between Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto turned out to be remarkably similar to the fight between Trinidad and Vargas- Eerily similar, in fact, and possibly in more ways than one. Not only were both grueling, somewhat one-sided battles that ended with brutal late-round stoppages of badly damaged fighters..but in hindsight it would appear to some that the winners of both fights may have committed the gravest sin in all of sports.
Lets just hope that the one difference between the fights is that Miguel Cotto has not been permanently damaged by the fight with Margarito as some believe Fernando Vargas was from the Trinidad loss. Only time will tell.
Legalized street fighting, eh? I could have sworn we all wanted to disassociate from MMA being “legalized street fighting”, but whatever puts asses in seats I guess.
I never liked him as a boxer, after reading that I’m beginning to think I’ll like him even less as a promoter.