Former Olympian and WBC #1 ranked super featherweight challenger Francisco Vargas (22-0-1 ,16 KOs) will challenge WBC super featherweight champion Takashi Miura (29-2-2 ,22 KO) this Saturday. The scheduled for 12 round world title bout will take place on the undercard of the main event featuring Saul Alvarez vs. Miguel Cotto. The event will take place at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino events center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The bout will be aired on HBO pay per view.
Vargas represented his native Mexico in the 2008 Olympics in China. He turned professional in 2010 and has remained quite active in the ring to this very present day. His breakout fight came last year against former world champion Juan Manuel Lopez. It was a dominating performance by Vargas who stopped Lopez in round three. Ironically that victory also took place on the undercard of a Saul Alvarez main event.
Miura will be the toughest test that Vargas has faced thus far as a pro. Miura is coming off of a very impressive knockout victory over former world champion Billy Dib this past May. This will be the U.S. debut for Miura and an opportunity for him to prove he is a top world champion at 130. Miura has been a world champion for more than two years and will look to return to Japan as a world champion.
There will be large support of Mexican fans on hand to support Alvarez. Those same fans will likely get behind Vargas as he attempts to win his first world title. Mentally this can be a very good thing but at the same time it will be up to Vargas to go out and defeat Miura. The emotion of the fan support will only carry him so far against a top fighter like Miura. It has been 7 years since those China Olympics for Vargas where he came up short. Now its time to see if he can strike gold in the pros.
