Vargas has sights on Pacquiao, but DeMarco fight comes first

Manny Pacquiao is fighting Chris Algieri tonight (early Sunday in Macau), but the World Boxing Organization welterweight champion’s eyes are on Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Jessie Vargas is also fighting tonight in Macau. But he also has an eye cast toward the future.

Vargas, the 25-year-old undefeated World Boxing Association junior welterweight regular champion from Las Vegas, wants to fight Pacquiao.

Of course, he first needs to defeat Antonio DeMarco tonight in his second title defense. Vargas won the title April 12, beating Khabib Allakhverdiev, and retained it Aug. 2 with a 12-round unanimous decision over Anton Novikov.

“I know there can’t be one without the other,” Vargas said. “First things first — take care of DeMarco — then try to make the fight with Manny.”

Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, who promotes Pacquiao and Vargas, told Vargas he would try to match the two in 2015. Of course, a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight trumps everything.

But until that fight happens, Vargas will keep hoping for his shot. He’s likely to be moving up in weight after tonight’s title defense because he knows there are bigger fights at 147 pounds.

“The big money is at welterweight, and I want to be involved in the biggest fights,” Vargas said.

Vargas (25-0, nine knockouts) hopes his recent association with Roy Jones Jr. as his trainer will pay off. Jones took over for Ismael Salas about five weeks ago after Salas moved to England to work with a couple of fighters.

Vargas said he and Jones connected and he likes the relationship so far.

“He’s got me thinking two, three steps ahead,” Vargas said. “It’s a lot like chess. Roy keeps it interesting, and he explains from beginning to end why he does things so there’s no confusion.”

Jones said he wanted to make sure Vargas was comfortable with what he was showing him, so he didn’t try to change too much for this fight.

“We worked on Jessie’s mechanics before we began sparring,” Jones said. “He’s developing more speed, and more speed means more power.”

To prepare for DeMarco, a left-hander who is 31-3-1 with 23 knockouts, Vargas has sparred with southpaws. His past two fights also were against left-handers, so he’s not going to have a lot of confusion in the ring.

“I probably had more fun training for this fight than any fight in my career,” Vargas said. “Roy just has this way about him. He’s one of the all-time greats. How can you not help but learn from him?”

If Vargas wins, he’ll be rooting hard for Pacquiao to beat Algieri. And should the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight fail to materialize, he will be ready to step in and be part of a headline pay-per-view event.

“Everyone talks about Chris Algieri’s life story being so compelling, and it is,” Vargas said. “But my life story is also compelling. I’m living the real American dream. My family comes from Mexico. My parents had to work two jobs to support my boxing since I was 8 years old. I was never given anything easy. I’ve had to work hard for everything I have.

“I think my story would sell to the public. I’m an action fighter who gives a great performance every time I’m in the ring. I would love the opportunity to face Manny.”

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow him on Twitter: @stevecarprj.