Rey Vargas Ascends and Begins his Search of a Third World Championship

Opportunity opened its arms to the Mexican fighter Rey Vargas, providing him with the option of moving up in weight and launching himself in search of his third world championship.

After winning the WBC feather belt by split decision against Filipino Mark Magsayo (24-1-0, 16 KOs) on July 9th, in San Antonio, Texas, Vargas and his team immediately took steps to unify titles by facing fellow Aztec Leo Santa Cruz (38-2-1, 19 KOs), the current super champion of the WBA.

A month later, the WBA Championships Committee authorized the Vargas-Santa Cruz confrontation, overruling a previously issued order, in which it required Santa Cruz to face off with Brit Leigh Wood (26- 2-0, 16 KOs), “regular” champion of that same organization. The purpose was to have a single champion for each category.

Simultaneously, the WBA allowed Wood to fight Mexican Mauricio Lara (24-2-1, 17 KOs), who is twelfth in the ranking, but has 13 wins and a draw in his last 14 bouts.

In its mandate, the WBA specified that the winners between Vargas-Santa Cruz and Wood-Lara should face each other in the next fight.

While Wood and Lara initially agreed to compete on September 24th at the MotorPoint Arena in Nottingham, the Vargas-Santa Cruz fight never materialized, which created enormous grief among many supporters of the two champions.

On the other hand, and less than two weeks before facing each other, Wood suffered an injury in training and the duel with Lara had to be postponed. This was according to information from the English newspaper The Daily Star, which did not specify the trauma of the British boxer.

Then, another surprising event motivated Vargas to change course in his immediate aspirations: the failure on the scale of the talented and undefeated American southpaw Shakur Stevenson (19-0-0, 9 KOs), who prevailed by unanimous decision over Brazilian Robson Conceicao on September 23th in New Jersey, but was stripped of the WBC belt.

VARGAS REQUESTS TO FIGHT FOR THE VACANT WBC BELT

As the brawl with Santa Cruz remained in limbo and the 130-pound belt was vacant, Vargas decided to move up to 130 pounds and ask the WBC if he could fight for the title.

The response from the sanctioning body, which was positive, also opened the doors to the belt for the American O’Shaquie Foster (19-2-0, 11 KOs) who was ranked at the top of the super featherweight hierarchy.

“The WBC Board of Governors voted unanimously to approve the petition from current WBC featherweight champion, Rey Vargas from Mexico, to fight for the vacant super featherweight title against mandatory contender of the division and WBC silver champion O´Shaquie Foster”, the WBC stated on its website Monday.

In the statement, which was posted on the website, the WBC ordered a 30-day period of free negotiations between both parties, which also specified the winner’s obligation to make two mandatory defenses, in accordance with the rules and regulations of the WBC.

Supporting its decision, the WBC wrote that Vargas was a 122-pound champion for two years (2017-2019) and made five successful title defenses. Later, he won the featherweight belt by defeating Filipino Mark Magsayo.

Maurició Sulaimán, president of the WBC, told a group of journalists at the organization’s headquarters in Mexico that Vargas had contacted them and requested the opportunity. And since the regulations of the WBO give privileges to world champions, they were able to make it a reality.

For his part, the 29-year-old Foster, based in Houston, Texas, exhibits a streak of nine victories, the most recent win by unanimous decision against Tajikistan’s Muhammadjhuja Yaqubon (19-1- 0, 10 KOs), on March 18, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where the WBC Silver belt at 130 pounds was at stake.

“It’s a dream come true,” Foster told Probellum.com. “And I’m so happy, I can’t even hide it. It’s something that I’ve been working for since I was eight years old. I never had a dream to be an Olympian, it was always to be a world champion so I’m feeling great and I’m ready to put on a show for the world”, said Foster.

He continued with, “I feel like everything is happening at the right time and it’s my time to take over. I would love to unify once I get the title and then go undisputed if I can. I’ve got big, big, big aspirations coming up. We’re going to make it happen.”

Referring to Vargas, Foster pointed out that he is not the typical Mexican boxer, but he has observed that he has weak points that he can take advantage of when they meet in the ring. And he insisted that although he did not want to offer too much information in this regard, he is already analyzing his tactical plan for the upcoming match.

Article submitted by Jorge Juan Alvarez in Spanish.

Please note any adjustments made were for clarification purposes and any errors in translation were unintentional.

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