Vargas-Mayorga FAR FROM DONE! Matador planning return to welter, interested in Hatton, Mosley and Cotto!

GL: You've been in the news quite a bit lately, reports came out that you got in trouble in Nicaragua. Shortly after that you're back in America and now there's rumors out there that you're going to be fighting Fernando Vargas on May 5, what can you tell us about this? "Regarding the trouble back home, there's always a middle ground for the truth. Obviously part of it is true, part of it is not but the press wants to sell papers so they sensationalize some of the news. I'm not denying the whole thing, there's some issues that I have to face back home but nothing is insurmountable. I think the Vargas fight would be a great idea, I don't know about the date and I don't know how real the fight may be."

"Considering that it's a good purse, it's a fight I've wanted for a long time and I've always wanted to get my hands on him."

GL: How do you think a fight between you and Vargas plays out at 160 pounds?

Ricardo Mayorga: "He has to come down to 154, there's no doubt. After my loss to Oscar, I considered going down and I still might go down to 147. The fight would have to be at 154 pounds and at 154 pounds I know there's no doubt I knock him out in two or three rounds."

GL: So you're not moving up again?

RM: "No."

GL: If Vargas comes back and says he can't make 154, you'd rather not fight him and risk the payday?

RM: "Like I said before, my mindset after the De La Hoya fight was that I wanted to 147, the only exception to what I want to do would be to fight Vargas, but I want him to get off his lazy ass and get down to 154 pounds. He did it with Mosley and he can do it with me."

GL: We have spoken in a while, how have you been dealing with the loss to De La Hoya? Do you have any explaination?

RM: "I'm going to recognize that I lost, I'm not going to make any excuses. Like everyone else, everyone thinks they can do better in training or in the fight but I'd rather accept my defeat."

GL: If the Vargas fight were to get done would you prefer that it didn't compete with the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight on May 5?

RM: "May 5 is fine with me, but at 154."

GL: When I spoke with Vargas he told me he can't make 154 because he's been making that weight his whole career. He told me that he would want to fight at 162, but there's no way he's going to be able to make 154.

RM: "I hear from very good friends in Los Angeles that they see him drunk on the streets of LA, tell him to stop drinking so much and he'll be able to make 154. I have no problem knocking Vargas out, he's like a junk car you touch it and all the wheels start to fall off, but he still has to make 154 regardless.

GL: When it comes to a Vargas fight some fans might say that you shouldn't focus on the weight, just take advantage of the money and the opportunity and keep it moving.

RM: "They put him in front of me and I knock him out but he has to make 154. I want to fight three times this year and I don't plan on losing any of them. That's a promise to the fans and I'm going to keep my word on that and if this faggot can't make weight, I'd love to fight Ricky Hatton at 147, Shane Mosley at 147, Miguel Cotto at 147, any of them would be nice and I'd love to fight them all, I know I'd knock all of them out within six rounds. And I also want to get the chance to fight the winner of De La Hoya and Mayweather. If Mayweather doesn't retire I'd give him his first loss and I want to get another chance with Oscar."

GL: How confident are you that you can make 147?

RM: "I can make it easy, I've been keeping myself in better shape lately and I can make the weight no problem."

GL: Are you still smoking cigarettes?

RM: "Yes of course, if I stopped my body would break down."

GL: Is there anything you'd like to say in closing?

RM: "I want to apologize to all of my fans for coming up short in the De La Hoya fight. Nobody is perfect and I'm certainly not. You don't measure a champion by the amount of times he loses, but by the amount of times he gets up dusts himself off and gets back to the top."

M

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