Golden future has Vargas thinking revenge

For Fernando Vargas, it's always about Oscar De La Hoya.

Less than three weeks before facing former lightweight and welterweight champion Shane Mosley in a crossroads fight for both men, Vargas has De La Hoya on his mind. Although Vargas insisted this week that ''the only person on my mind right now is Shane Mosley," the subjects of vengeance and De La Hoya kept cropping up.

Vargas knows if he doesn't box far better against Mosley Feb. 25 in Las Vegas than he did against Javier Castillejo in August, he won't have to concern himself with either De La Hoya or his obsession of avenging a knockout loss to De La Hoya 3 1/2 years ago. In that sense, Mosley is on his mind and Vargas seems confident in what he needs to do to beat him. Yet, underneath it all, there is only one man left for Vargas.

''Vengeance is on my mind," Vargas said from his training camp in California. ''I've got to look great for me and to demand vindication. I'm glad I have this opportunity and now it's right in front of me and I'm excited about it."

A future bout against De La Hoya is what excites Vargas, but Mosley does not. He is also coming off a dismal stretch of performances in which he has lost every big fight since 2002 except one. Oddly, that one was against De La Hoya. That win was sandwiched between consecutive losses to Vernon Forrest and Winky Wright. Since then, Mosley has won twice against weak competition in which he was far from the dominating fighter who beat De La Hoya nearly six years ago.

That night he was brilliant. But only three fights later, Forrest destroyed him in New York, then beat him again six months later. Proving not everyone learns from his mistakes, Mosley lost two fights to Wright after he had scored a decision over De La Hoya a second time in an extremely close match.

Now Mosley (41-4, 3 KOs) is facing Vargas when their reputations are on the slide. Although Mosley seems focused on Vargas, the latter is looking at this fight as a steppingstone toward avenging the most devastating loss of his career.

Vargas (26-2, 22 KOs) once held De La Hoya on a pedestal, but over time a simmering feud finally exploded. Despite a fast start in their meeting, Vargas was ultimately overwhelmed and embarrassed, stopped by De La Hoya, then suspended for testing positive for steroid use. It was such a humbling defeat that even now, with Mosley looming, the 28-year-old former junior middleweight champion still focuses on De La Hoya.

Even when he dissects what must be done to beat Mosley, it is within the context of what De La Hoya could not do against him.

''I've been training like never before," Vargas said. ''I've been going 14 rounds. In between rounds, before the minute is up, I'm up and ready to go. I'm going to be putting on constant pressure from Round 1. I know Shane is a comfort fighter. When he's comfortable, he's all right and when he's not comfortable is when he gets in trouble. So I'm not going to make him comfortable. When it comes time to fight, he better be ready from Round 1. You're going to see a lot of intensity and I'm excited about that. I'm definitely looking forward to bigger and better things."

Those ''things" are De La Hoya.

''There is only one fighter out there that beat me that is still active," Vargas said, slyly referring to De La Hoya. ''Titles don't matter to me. Fighters pay the bills, the belts don't. There are people with belts that don't get paid much and there are fighters like myself that are able to make a substantial amount of money [without belts]."

Chief among those is De La Hoya, and Vargas no doubt will be thinking about him with every punch he throws.

Contender returns

Providence's Peter Manfredo tries to take a step up in class against aging but still dangerous Scott Pemberton Sunday night at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence in a special edition of ESPN2's Friday Night Fights.

Manfredo was a finalist in the NBC series ''The Contender," losing a disputed decision to Sergio Mora in the show's finale, then losing a second, more disputed split decision in a recent rematch in Los Angeles. Manfredo (24-3, 10 KOs) returns to familiar turf and takes on one of the hardest-punching super middleweights in the world in the 39-year-old Pemberton (29-4-1, 24 KOs), who was stopped in his last fight by International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy.

On the undercard, former US Olympian Jason Estrada (5-0, 1 KOs) takes on Yanqui Diaz (13-3, 8 KOs) in a six-round bout. Diaz scored a shocking victory two years ago when he stopped undefeated former cruiserweight champion Juan Carlos Gomez in one round. Providence cruiserweight Matt Godfrey (10-0, 4 KOs) also steps up in class, facing Ernest Mateen (28-11-3, 10 KOs) in another six-rounder.

Short jabs

Wright is at it again. Only hours after his representatives agreed to terms for a June 17 bout against middleweight champion Jermain Taylor, he not only backed out, but fired promoter Gary Shaw, claiming Shaw was never authorized to negotiate for him. Wright once signed, then unsigned, with several promoters at the same time not long after his first big win over Mosley several years ago. Now the Taylor fight is supposed to go to a purse bid ordered by the World Boxing Council but who knows if Wright will agree to what will be, at best, a 60/40 split favoring Taylor? Wright was in line to earn about $4 million for a Taylor fight at the MGM Grand until he informed Jim Wilkes, his attorney and a friend of Shaw's, that he no longer would work with Shaw. While Shaw and Wilkes were working on the deal in Vegas, Wright was in New York, secretly meeting with HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg and Golden Boy Promotions president Richard Schaefer. Schaefer acknowledges a discussion, but said Wright contacted him about serving as his promoter only for the Taylor fight. He said no deal has been made. Meanwhile, Lou DiBella, who promotes Taylor, has a deal but nobody to deal with and a champion who likely will lose his mandatory contender and best money-making partner before the week is out . . . Vargas acknowledged he did not fight well in winning a decision from Castillejo after Castillejo had been stripped of the 154-pound title, making the fight only a 10-round contest. ''I feel bad because I had to lose a lot of weight," Vargas said of a performance he now regrets. ''I didn't check my weight in training camp. I was eating all of the right stuff so I felt good and I thought I was all right. I would eat good all week but on the weekend eat a little food that wasnt too healthy. I let myself down. In that fight, from the first round, I was so tired and I was asking for help to get through this and I would never let that happen again. For Castillejo, I came down from 194. For this fight, I was in the low 180s [when camp opened]. I lost 10 pounds in three days not knowing how I lost it."