Vargas visits Lindsay, plans Hollywood-style show

LINDSAY — Former three-time world junior middleweight boxing champion Fernando Vargas had never been to Lindsay, but more visits are likely on the horizon.

Vargas, now a boxing promoter, spent Friday night in Lindsay and is in talks with McDermont Field House to bring a boxing event to Lindsay in early 2010.

“I talked with Rene (Hernandez, McDermont’s program director), I talked with the city council and they’re going for it,” Vargas said. “They’re excited about it. We’re gonna bring boxing to Lindsay. It’s gonna be a star-studded event, Hollywood style.

“(McDermont’s) awesome venue. It’s a great opportunity for kids to get out of the street. I know what it is to get caught up in trouble on the streets.”

Vargas toured the city like a potential college football recruit, as he signed autographs and posed for pictures for a few hundred fans at McDermont, addressed the crowd at the Lindsay-Strathmore football game and sampled the Friday Night Market.

“He was very excited about the potential we have at McDermont for boxing,” Hernandez said. “He’d never seen anything like it.”

Hernandez met Vargas at a boxing promoters class (Fight Promoter University) in Irvine and got him interested in a bringing high-level boxing to the Central Valley.

Vargas, who is promoting an upcoming card at The Palms Casino and Resort in Las Vegas featuring welterweight Zab Judah, said despite Lindsay’s small population of around 10,000, that a major boxing event could work there.

“Absolutely; wherever there’s Mexicans there’s a market,” he said. “But fans in general, of every ethnic background, love boxing. We’re gonna bring a great show to Lindsay in the new year.”

Hernandez said Vargas is planning to return next month to continue planning for the event.

The Oxnard native retired after three consecutive defeats — to Shane Mosley (twice) and Ricardo Mayorga — and decided to call it a career after 26 wins and 5 losses. But Vargas has hit the ground running in his current line of work. November 6’s card in Las Vegas is his most recent, but Vargas has already promoted events that combine boxing and mixed martial arts (Worlds Collide) in Primm, Nev.

Instead of rivaling the recent MMA boom, Vargas thinks the two sports can unite.

“They go good with one another. It’s worked great,” he said of his Worlds Collide events. “MMA fans became boxing fans and people that were not MMA fans became MMA fans that night.”

Porterville’s resident mixed martial arts rising star, 22-year-old featherweight Joe Soto, who was introduced with Vargas at McDermont and the Bell Game, was a bit starstruck when he entered McDermont’s boxing ring with Vargas and said a boxing or mixed martial arts card at McDermont has potential.

“I’ve seen this guy on TV before fight, so it’s really an honor,” Soto said. “There’s plenty of room, they could definitely have some shows here and people would definitely come. I think it’d be a smart idea.”

Soto is the reigning featherweight champion at the Bellator Fighting Championships and plans to either fight at Tachi Palace in Lemoore again (he improved to 8-0 after beating Mike Christensen there October 8) or wait until April’s Bellator event, which recently signed television contracts with NBC, Fox Sports Net and Telemundo.