"Focused" Fernando Vargas might be the more fitting nickname for the WBA 154-pound champion as he approaches his bout with Oscar de la Hoya. "Ferocious" has served him well in the past, but in a Tuesday conference call with media the 24-year-old fighter was calm and collected despite the huge event that is just five weeks away.

Staying focused and implementing his game plan is the difference between winning and losing the biggest fight of his career. There's a time for fighting with either end of the torso, and Vargas feels he's learned from his mistakes in and out of the ring, and when to use brains as well as cajones.

"I'm just training very hard. Before I would just take off on vacation and try and get back into the gym for a fight," Vargas said. "It was my first day of sparring yesterday, and I'm already outworking these guys."

The Vargas showing against Wilfredo Rivera, where he was knocked down in the second round, is explained away by a lack of training leading up to the fight. Vargas didn't go into the gym for five months after the Trinidad loss, and then crammed all his preparation into a two-month camp that left him weak and having to lose too much weight.

Despite years of saying he would never allow Vargas to make a payday from fighting him, De La Hoya reversed course and originally signed for a May 4 clash, only to hurt his wrist and delay the bout. Camp Vargas feels that the delay, along with Floyd Mayweather Sr.'s comments, are a case of an uncertain Golden Boy in need of a booster.

"Mayweather is the only one talking. He needs to give his fighter confidence," Vargas said. "Mayweather tries to say it won't even be a fight ... and I think, 'Have you lost your mind?' I'd rather die before I submit. Mayweather is the only one flapping his lips over there. If he's the greatest trainer in the world why won't his own son let him train him?"

Rolando Arellano, Vargas' co-manager and longtime friend, says that Camp Vargas has already won the first round of the fight because of De La Hoya's concessions to give the fight, and then the delay.

"They would not sign this contract to fight with eight-ounce gloves. They wanted ten-ounce gloves." Arellano remarked. "That should tell you something."

There are many questions for Vargas in this fight. His ability to make the division limit is more difficult as he fills out, and he walks around at 175 pounds. But with proper care of himself and a non-stop training regimen, he's learned that the 9-5 approach to boxing is the way to keep his body tuned up and capable of taking off the weight in proper fashion, as opposed to late-camp reduction tactics that often leave a fighter weak during the bout.

Because De La Hoya started his career as a 130-pound fighter, Vargas feels that finally the Golden One is going to meet up with someone bigger and stronger than him, and in a way it's a form of payback for his idol Julio Cesar Chavez.

"Chavez called me up and came down to my camp. It was just a very emotional time for me. I even got on my knees during his bout with Taylor and said, 'Please don't let him lose'", Vargas said of his hero.

With a style more classically tailored to the Mexican approach of fight first, box second, the Oxnard product is also proud to be the cause of some raised eyebrows among fellow spar mates in training.

"Black fighters that spar with me say, 'Are you sure you got no soul in you?' I say nah, I'm all Mexican. With the pivots, the angles, and the pretty stuff I have been able to do," Vargas proudly added.

And he is more than the typical Mexican banger. Given the motivation, he can box with technical studiousness, and in the loss to Trinidad, he showed exceptional early-rounds defensive skills as Trinidad mounted a blazing attack to finish him. Sucked into a dogfight in the middle of the bout, he eventually succumbed. But a lot of people forget that 20 seconds into that bout, he looked like a man in deep trouble with little chance to survive the first three minutes.

It's that kind of heart that can cause fans to think a guy gets hit too much, or can take it and win. De La Hoya is not "Tito" Trinidad, and is basically a one-handed fighter whose power is not what it was at lower weights. But he's also a much better boxer than Trinidad, and that's probably his strategy, to make Vargas expend himself in costly assaults before stepping it up and winning the fight over the late rounds.

It is here that Vargas' chin comes into effect. Opinions are common on this question, and the knockdown scored by Rivera is the common citation among those who think that Vargas left something in the ring that December night in 2000 that he will never get back. However, looking at the Rivera punch that scored the knockdown, it's no sign of weakness that Vargas went down. It was an absolutely perfect shot, the kind that any fighter would score a knockdown with. It was a Rahman-Lewis type of right hand, the perfectly placed blow.

Hardly the stuff to suggest Vargas is finished, and considering that he got up, survived, and stopped Rivera quicker than Mosley or Oscar did, you've got to at least give him style points. And he admittedly wasn't in shape for that bout, in the wake of the post-Tito aftermath. There will be no such distractions September 14.

The long-standing grudge is the result of what Vargas will only describe as a "personal incident" that occurred between the two men, and he says he will divulge the exact nature of the incident after the fight is done.

"He knows what it is," Vargas said of De La Hoya. "We'll clear that up after the fight."

Contending that he'd rather go out on his shield than run, Vargas knows that Oscar also knows this. But it's a kind of tactical change-up he's planning on pulling. Though he wouldn't detail his fight plan even in the vaguest terms, he does box well, and has a good stiff jab when he remembers to use it.

In all likelihood, Vargas' strength advantage in close, and Oscar's willingness to box will see Vargas coming forward at times. And that's when the lure of proving you're man enough will pose itself for De La Hoya. If he can outbox Vargas, he won't have to be sucked into a dogfight. But if he can't, it's a doubly difficult evening for him. He'll be in against a guy who is making him fight on terms that do not favor him, with the cultural rivalry between them as an added impetus to prove who the better man really is.

Of course, De La Hoya is also one of the best boxers in the game today. He can merely outpoint most opponents, and has never been run over in facing the game's best. But there's the feeling that his power hasn't accompanied his latest jump in weight, and at some point that factor will backfire when he fights someone of approximate skill, fire and willingness to use it. There are even some that believe this fight will not happen, that there will be another pullout, but personally that's hard to envision.

Oscar eventually met Ike Quartey when similar rumors preceded his November 1998 cancellation of that bout. He's a pretty tough fighter himself, but skilled enough that he doesn't have to show it that often. And Vargas wouldn't have it any other way.

"There's gonna be a point where he sees the type of mentality that I have," Vargas said.

That being willing to take the punishment, in the end, will prove an asset and not a hindrance. It's one of the age-old questions in boxing, and the answer, in this instance, should prove an entertaining one.