Trinidad Gets Last Licks

LAS VEGAS —  He ended the night like a baby, curled up on the floor, eyes leaking, bystanders gaping, and it was all wrong.

He was dragged to his feet as though he were sickly, helped from the ring, strapped to a gurney, sped to a hospital, and it wasn’t fair.

Fernando Vargas deserved to leave Saturday’s fight as he had fought it, like the “warrior” he had promised he would be, saved by his heavyweight heart.

Felix Trinidad won boxing’s unified 154-pound title and became probably the best fighter in the world with a stirring 12th-round technical knockout of Vargas at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

But Vargas deserves to win Los Angeles. He deserves the admiration of those who thought he was too young, the respect of those who thought he could not control his anger.

With the exception of a couple of middle-round flurries, Vargas was thoroughly whipped by a charging Trinidad.

It was like the pesky junior varsity football team being run over by the varsity. It was like a 9-year-old son diving and scraping but ultimately being beaten in a game of one-on-one basketball against his dad.

But in the best hour of boxing of this year, Vargas showed as much courage as Oscar De La Hoya has shown his entire career.

When he feels well enough to talk to the media, the kid no longer needs to talk smack. No challenge or boast or anger from his mouth can match what the world saw Saturday from his fists.

Even as he was falling five times Saturday to Trinidad’s relentless jabs, Fernando Vargas was growing up.

“He said before the fight that if you were going to beat him, you were going to have to carry him out on a stretcher,” said Rolando Arelleno, Vargas’ co-manager. “That nearly happened tonight.”

Despite eventually absorbing a beating so bad that even those in press row were screaming for referee Jay Nady to stop it before he finally did with just 1:27 left in the fight, Vargas did the one thing he needed to do.

It was the one thing that cost De La Hoya a victory against Trinidad. It was the one thing that could separate Vargas from his Los Angeles predecessor.

Actually, it wasn’t what he did, but what he didn’t do.

“He did not run,” Arelleno said. “Say what you want, but he was an Aztec warrior tonight. He did not run.”

He did not run even though he was knocked down twice in the first minute of the fight.

It happened so fast. One minute most of the crowd was chanting, “Var-gas, Var-gas” and waving the Mexican flag. The next minute, the crowd was mostly silent.

Vargas’ squinting eyes were suddenly wide with surprise. His 22-year-old legs--five years younger than those of Trinidad--were suddenly wobbly.

It was a right overhand that knocked Vargas down the first time. He rose to his feet just long enough to endure a left hook that knocked him down again.

Two knockout punches in one minute, yet by the time the first round ended, Vargas was running and punching and even smirking. Even if he was so loopy, he ended the round by running to a neutral corner.

“At that point, some fighters go out cold and never get up,” said Roger Bloodworth, Vargas’ assistant trainer. “But this was a man.”

It took only three more minutes for him to prove that. By the end of the second round, he was exchanging blows with Trinidad. By the end of the fifth round, he was charging and connecting so much, he was actually winning the fight.

All this anger he showed before the fight--much of it against a father whom he called a “maggot” for abandoning him as a child--was coming out in fists more controlled then anyone imagined.

“He fought his butt off tonight, with a daddy, without a daddy, without the promise of a daddy, it had nothing to do with a daddy,” promoter Don King said.

By the end of that fifth round, Vargas had actually knocked Trinidad down once, and had survived two low blows.

“Have you ever been hit low? It makes you very tired, very quick,” Bloodworth said.

Vargas may have been tired, but he somehow remained quick.

“Somebody wondered whether the first round would take the heart out of Vargas,” said George Foreman, working the fight for HBO. “That obviously did not happen. He showed heart until the end.”

It was, instead, Trinidad’s left hook that eventually finished him.

“A left hook from hell,” said Burt Sugar, boxing historian.

Vargas kept charging, still trying to make up for the first-round knockdown, but Trinidad would not back down.

Even though Trinidad won each of the final six rounds, each were filled with furious exchanges and repeated refusals to bend.

Vargas’ left eye closed. Trinidad’s right eye closed. And still they punched.

Trinidad was the smarter and better fighter. But Vargas was the more inspirational, bringing the crowd of 10,067 to its feet and keeping them there.

“This was the fight of this year, and next year, and maybe the year after that,” Sugar said.

At one point, Trinidad hit Vargas so hard, sweat flew backward from his jolted head like a sprinkler. The crowd gasped.

At another point, Vargas hit Trinidad with five consecutive lefts to that swelling eye, holding him close and pounding him, and the crowd roared.

If you didn’t see any of this, too bad. If you can watch it on HBO next Saturday at 11 p.m., you should.

This is not about promoting a TV network, but a sport that, for once Saturday, shined through its pain.

Fitting, the fight didn’t end until Vargas was knocked down once, then twice, then a third time with a right overhand that even a championship soul could not overcome.

“He stayed until he was flat on his back,” said Gary Shaw, Vargas’ promoter. “We will fight another day.”

We want to be there to watch.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.