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Just another nice article on Big Venezuela.. Thanks for reading.
NEW YORK -- Ronney Vargas was like most young adults. He was constantly on his cell phone text messaging friends. He was out and about, as if there were 34 hours in a day instead of 24.
"He was a laid-back kid, a little lazy, the usual teenage stuff," said Teddy Cruz, who used to be Vargas's strength and conditioning coach. "But when he got in the ring, he turned on the switch, and it was all business."
Vargas was one of Cruz's prized pupils, a 20-year-old junior middleweight who was in the second year of his pro career after winning three Golden Gloves championships. Already 8-0 with six knockouts, Vargas was being brought along the way a young prospect is developed when there's a chance he can be something special. He had a well-regarded manager in Pat Lynch, who had guided the career of Arturo Gatti, and he had Cruz strengthening his 6-foot-2 body and hardening his punching power. "I truly believe the kid had all the talent in the world to be a world champion," Lynch said. "He could box; he could brawl. He had power in both hands. He had Tommy Hearns-type shoulders. He was the complete package." Lynch and Cruz are in mourning, along with Vargas' family and the New York boxing community, after Vargas was shot to death early Saturday morning after an altercation outside a bodega in the Bronx. Police say Vargas and five friends got into an argument with two couples when the men became angry after seeing Vargas chatting with their female companions. Vargas was pistol-whipped, then shot in his car and later pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital. "It's just a disaster," Cruz said. "It's senseless," Lynch said. "Just terrible."
Cruz got the news about 5:30 a.m., roughly two hours after the shooting took place. Less than 24 hours earlier, he had made the drive from his home in North Plainfield, N.J., to Mamaroneck, N.Y., where he met Vargas and went through a two-hour workout regime they did three or four times a week. Vargas was scheduled to fight on the undercard of the Oct. 18 main event between Kelly Pavlik and Bernard Hopkins in Atlantic City. "It was just a normal day," Cruz said. "After we were done, I told him to have a good weekend and to take care. That's the last time I saw him."
From all reports, Vargas was a good kid out of the ring. Born in Venezuela and raised in the South Bronx, he lived with his father and two brothers. It was at the Police Athletic League on Webster Avenue in the Bronx where he first honed his boxing skills. He decided to drop out of high school to pursue the sport full-time, winning Golden Gloves titles in 2005, 2006 and 2007. "I saw a lot of overall ability," said Brian Adams, the director of New York's prestigious Golden Gloves. "He was a guy who was progressing with each tournament. He was well-rounded. He could fight and he could box. I wanted him to get with someone who could do things with him and not rush him." Enter Lynch, who considered retiring from boxing after managing Gatti's career. Lynch brought in Cruz. Maybe, he thought, Vargas could be another Gatti: tough, determined, a warrior. "He loved the sport and was always in the gym," Lynch said of Vargas. "We had everything in the right place. He was fighting on big-time shows. It was all there." Cruz said he used to pick up Vargas to take him to his workouts, but two months ago the boxer bought a car, the same car he would lose his life in. Frankie "El Gato" Figueroa, another pro boxer from the Bronx, says there are lessons to be learned in the tragedy. "One, he had a lot of potential and was doing well in the ring and had a lot of good friends. Second, you don't hang out until 3 in the morning no matter how grown you think you are. The later it gets at night, the risk for potential trouble goes up." Adams said, "At 3 in the morning, nothing positive is going on out there."
George Willis is the boxing columnist for the New York Post.
