Josue Vargas-Jose Zepeda Battle At MSG

About a year ago on Instagram, Josue Vargas sought out to take on Jose “Chon” Zepeda and sent out a message. That message has both of them in a crossroads fight that will close out the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden this Saturday night on ESPN+ starting at 10 p.m. ET.

Check out our latest episode of the Big Fight Weekend Podcast, where we have on from Boxingscene.com Keith Idec, as we speak on this fight card, and more.

This will be a homecoming for Josue Vargas (19-1, 9 KOs) as the southpaw Bronx native. Speaking at the final press conference yesterday, Vargas was excited for the chance to fight about ten miles from where he grew up.

“I’m fighting in my hometown, Madison Square Garden, the main event,” Vargas said at the final press conference Thursday. “I feel ready, very confident. He said I don’t have the experience he has, but hey, I’ve been in the ring {sparring} the best. I can name them. I’ve been in there with Mikey Garcia, Floyd Mayweather, Gervonta Davis, Teofimo Lopez. The list could keep on going.”

A classic rivalry with ALL the smoke 💨

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙚-𝙤𝙛𝙛 𝙙𝙞𝙙 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙩 👀#ZepedaVargas | SATURDAY | ESPN+ pic.twitter.com/kiCXiGIqYT

— Top Rank Boxing (@trboxing) October 28, 2021

Jose Zepeda (34-2, 26 KOs) comes into this bout off a less than stellar outing against Hank Lundy in May but was victorious. That was for Zepeda coming off the clear-cut Fight of the Year winner last year against Ivan Barnachyk. When asked at the presser, he felt that Vargas wasn’t on his level.

“He’s number 56 in the world,” Zepeda stated. “Why is he saying {I haven’t fought anyone}? Saturday, like I said, he’s going to find out there’s levels to this.”

“He’s a young fighter. He still needs a lot of experience. He doesn’t know it. His team probably doesn’t know it yet, but Saturday he will get to see that boxing is not a game. You put your life in there, and he hasn’t been with any top 20 fighters. He’s going to realize what he got into this Saturday.”

The stakes in this one are Zepeda’s WBC Silver Title. That will move them one step closer to eventually challenging the current undisputed champion at super-lightweight Josh Taylor. Taylor is slated to face WBO mandatory challenger Jack Catterall in February 2022. While that chance seems way down the line, we’ll see which one of these two gets the nod when they square off Saturday night.