WBC featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr. (31-1, 18 KOs) will next defend his crown against the mandatory challenger of the division Rey Vargas (34-0, 22 KOs).
Russell comes from defeating Mongolia’s Tugstsogt Nyambayar in February last year. Vargas, the former WBC super bantamweight champion, was named champion in recess due to a leg injury. Fully recovered, he was ratified as the mandatory challenger for the featherweight division.
Promoter Tom Brown, head of TGB Promotions, will announce the date and place for this bout shortly.
Sounds about right. Getting close to May – time for Russell to make his annual appearance.
good matchup between 2 in-active fighters
5′ 3” vs 5′ 10” interesting
Woooow!! We have a rare sighting of a boxing bird called: Russell, Jr.
One thing is for sure. Vargas will be constantly on Russell and make him fight. Hope Russell’s trainer has his bad habit fixed of hugging on the inside when he can laterally move and counter. All that hand speed, but getting flat-footed and holding on the inside is a bad habit.
Forget a KO in this fight, fight that has written all over to be an ugly one, a snooze feast. Vargas is a lanky and skilled fighter well known to be the antithesis of excitement, I am not really eager to watch it
Agreed MM. I like Vargas, but he definitely lacks that outward aggression to compliment his solid defense.
I honestly see this as a bit of a toss up…. Russel got the speed and we’ve seen Vargas struggle with that.
Gary Russell Jr doesn’t fight often, but when he does he makes sure that it’s somebody coming up from a lighter weight 🙂
Vargas should be able to stop Russell inside of 9 rounds.
Mr BIG mouth Russell has a chihuahua bark always screaming that no one wants to fight him bla bla bla.
This guys is so full of shit with his constant yapping even going as far as barking at Crawford who he knows can literally pick him up and toss him like a small chihuahua dog. Russell know it but there he is yapping that big mouth of his reminds me of the bearded lady at the circus lol he has a skull the size of a giant and a very small little body just odd!