Oscar De La Hoya once insisted that Floyd Mayweather was the opponent he most disliked.

But there is little question that his bitterest rivalry was with Fernando Vargas, his opponent on the night of September 14, 2002.

De La Hoya vs Vargas was billed as ‘Bad Blood’AFP

Where in 2007 Mayweather had taunted De La Hoya in an attempt to promote their fight and to get under his skin, Vargas intensely resented De La Hoya, then the world’s highest-profile fighter, and De La Hoya came to increasingly treat him with a sense of disdain.

As America’s ‘Golden Boy’ as a consequence of his winning a gold medal at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, De La Hoya was revered by Vargas, who later represented the US in 1996 in Atlanta. 

Vargas, however, alleges when in 1993 they were training separately at Big Bear Lake at altitude in California and he agreed to serve as one of De La Hoya’s sparring partners that he slipped and fell into a snowbank during a run, and was laughed at by De La Hoya, who simply ran on by. 

“People had been saying I would be the next Oscar De La Hoya,” Vargas later reflected. “But after that, I was like, ‘Fuck no, I’m the first Fernando Vargas’.”

De La Hoya maintains that he cannot remember that ever happening, but, according to Vargas, “That’s how it began”.

When Vargas later turned professional, his attempts to develop a rivalry with De La Hoya were built largely on his assertion that he was ‘more Mexican’ than the Mexican-American from East Los Angeles.

“It’s one thing to say you are Mexican,” he said. “It’s another thing to show it. I’m proud of being Mexican. I fight like a warrior, like Mexicans do. People are attracted to me because of my pride.”

“What is being Mexican?” De La Hoya countered. “Because I don’t talk like him or dress like him, I’m not Mexican? I grew up on the same hard streets. But the fact is I wanted to do something better in life.

“It’s degrading to Mexicans, this image that they have to dress like a thug and talk hard.”

For an extended period De La Hoya, who throughout his decorated career consistently fought the finest of opposition, was adamant that he wouldn’t fight Vargas and therefore contribute to him earning a career-high purse, but almost inevitably their time came. 

There was real animosity between Mayweather and De La HoyaGetty

He and Canelo also share a feudEsther Lin/PBC

But neither compared to the Vargas hatredGetty

“Everyone wants to fight me, and everyone wants to beat me,” he said. “I think it is strange he is so obsessed with me.”

What was promoted as ‘Bad Blood’ was postponed by four months because of an injury to De La Hoya’s left hand, after it was agreed that De La Hoya would be paid $14million and Vargas $6m.

De La Hoya, who by then had recorded decision defeats by Felix Trinidad and Shane Mosley, was installed as the narrow favourite over an opponent who had lost only to Trinidad.

“If I didn’t lose [to Trinidad] I wouldn’t have this fight,” Vargas also said. “De La Hoya is only fighting me because I lost to Trinidad and got knocked down a lot. But maybe it took that loss for the fans to love me like they do now.”

The Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas sold out all 11,425 tickets, on an occasion for which ringside tickets were priced at $1,200 but later sold on for considerably more. 

For the first time in his career Vargas, far from committed to the gym, worked with a nutritionist alongside his trainer Eduardo Garcia, the father figure he required given the anger he revealed he later retained towards the biological father who neglected him during his formative years.

When they both weighed in at the super-welterweight limit of 154lbs – De La Hoya was the WBC champion and Vargas the titlist of the WBA – Vargas revealed a transformed midsection, which had followed De La Hoya not only successfully securing 10-ounce, instead of eight-ounce, gloves, but demanding his opponent be tested for performance-enhancing drugs.

De La Hoya had been inactive for a career-long 448 days, since his victory over Javier Castillejo, by the time they entered the ring, and showed signs of ring-rust in the opening rounds.

“Oscar De La Hoya is taking more punishment in the first five rounds of this fight than he’s ever taken in five rounds of any fight,” said the HBO commentator Jim Lampley. “Blood’s dripping from his nose.”

De La Hoya was ultimately too good for VargasGetty

The fight was stopped in the penultimate roundGetty

The ‘Golden Boy’ regardless increasingly established his more cultured edges and mobility, and in the final seconds of the 10th round neared victory when he hurt Vargas with a powerful left hook.

Another left hook dropped Vargas in the 11th, and though he returned to his feet, De La Hoya let his hands go until, after 108 seconds of the penultimate round, the ending came.

“I wasn’t going to fight him, but he got under my skin,” De La Hoya later said. “So I told everybody that inside the ring my fists are going to do the talking.”

Vargas – whose sons Fernando Jnr, Amado and Emiliano have since become professional fighters – tested positive, post-fight, for the banned substance stanozolol, and was therefore fined $100,000 and suspended for ninth months. 

De La Hoya, whose ongoing rifts with Mayweather and Canelo Alvarez seem unlikely to heal, contacted Vargas weeks later to organise a private meeting in the hope of agreeing a truce.

“All I wanted to get out of the meeting was to hug it out, let’s be friends and move on,” he said. “But it never got to that. So I stood up and walked away.” 

Vargas’ take of the same meeting includes De La Hoya saying that he couldn’t remember what Vargas said had happened in Big Bear, but De La Hoya regardless apologising and that apology being accepted.

“I forgave him and that was that,” he said.