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Rey Vargas vs. O’Shaquie Foster Early Preview & Prediction
Coming up on Saturday, February 11th , Showtime Boxing returns to the spacious Alamodome in downtown San Antonio, Texas, for a night of world championship boxing action presented by Premier Boxing Champions and TGB Promotions. In the main event, making his second straight appearance at the Alamodome is WBC featherweight champion Rey Vargas (36-0, 22 KO), is moving up in weight to take on O’Shaquie Foster (19-2, 11 KO) for the WBC super-featherweight championship vacated by Shakur Stevenson.
Rey Vargas, from Otumba, Mexico, has seemingly found a second home in San Antonio, Texas. The 32-year-old, two-weight division world champion will make his second straight appearance in the Alamodome. After spending most of his career in the super-bantamweight division, Vargas made five defenses of the WBC super-bantamweight title. Vargas decided to test the waters at featherweight, winning the WBC featherweight crown over hard-punching Mark Magsayo via split decision in his second fight at that weight class. Vargas will be looking for a third title in as many divisions, going after the super featherweight strap.
The path to a shot at the world title for Foster (19-2, 11 KO) has had a couple of bumps along the way. However, the 29-year-old from Orange, Texas, will look to make the most of his first chance at a world title about three-hundred miles from his hometown. Foster has won nine straight fights, including wins over Jon Fernandez, Jesus Bravo, and an outstanding ninth-round knockout victory over respected veteran Miguel Roman on a Ring City card which put him on the map. After a busy 2019, Foster has fought just twice, most recently in March of 2022 against Muhammadkhuja Yaqubov in an eliminator to position himself for this title shot.
This fight will be a clash of styles, as Vargas will be looking to use his two-inch height advantage and volume punching to keep Foster on the outside. In his last fight against Mark Magsayo, Vargas was dropped in the ninth round and cut above the eye from a headbutt; in fact, Vargas has had issues over his last handful of fights with being cut from headbutts. With Foster often switching between stances, this could be something to look for.
Foster likes to hang in the pocket and use aggressive counterpunching to break down his oppenents. Against Miguel Roman, he landed a beautiful one-two combination to drop him in the third round and continued to break Roman down until getting the stoppage late in the fight. In his WBC eliminator fight against Muhammadkhuja Yaqubov, Foster used a great jab and switched stances throughout the fight to keep him off balance most of the night, scoring a knockdown late in the twelfth round and cruising to a unanimous decision victory.
This is an excellent test for both men and one that fans should look forward to on the early slate of announced fights for the year. There should be a good bit of support for both fighters in an intriguing matchup to see if Vargas can use his height and volume to overwhelm the shorter Foster or if Foster can counter-punch and pick apart Vargas as he’s done in his last two bouts. I think when it is all said and done, Vargas will come out with a close unanimous decision victory and his third world title in as many divisions.
