Jessie Vargas has no intentions of being Mikey Garcia's welterweight stepping stone

The reality check humbled Garcia and made the four-division world champion tread lightly at 147 pounds, as the 32-year-old didn’t take another fight for the remainder of 2019.

In December, however, he and his camp started making moves to plan ahead. Garcia signed a short-term deal with Matchroom Boxing USA to fight on DAZN and honed in on veteran Jessie Vargas to further test the welterweight waters. That same month a Garcia vs. Vargas fight was made for Feb. 29 at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas, live on DAZN.

And that’s where Vargas believes Garcia made a mistake. If Garcia thinks Vargas is going to be his statement fight at welterweight, the battle-tested Vargas wants to use Saturday night to give the bigger name star a rude awakening that he picked the wrong warrior.

“Keep in mind, there’s no easy fight in this division,” Vargas cautioned to Garcia, while speaking with DAZN News during a recent phone interview. “After this fight, he could still go down to 140 (pounds) and try to have some success there, but I just see myself having plenty of advantages.

“He’s a good fighter, don’t get me wrong,” Vargas continued. “Still, I’m the natural welterweight, and I’m going to make sure that he feels my power.”

If Vargas uses that power to pull off the upset, then it’d be him making Garcia (39-1, 30 KOs) his statement victory — not only in the welterweight division, but for his resurgence in boxing, period.

“It would show the fans that I’m still here,” Vargas said on what a win over Garcia would signify at this point in his career. “I’ve been in this game for many years professionally and have been at the top level for I don’t know how many years now.

“What (a win) would do for me is generate tons and tons of exposure and increase the level of audience that I have, increase my fan base and continue my path to being a boxing star, which is my ultimate goal, and become one of the best. I have to prove it fight by fight and earn the respect from all the fans.”

That’s if he doesn’t already have that respect in tow. The two-division world champion has reinforced his penchant for delivering a rugged, game fight bout after bout. The 30-year-old’s only losses came on the cards via unanimous decision defeats to Timothy Bradley and Manny Pacquiao about a year and a half apart in June 2015 and November 2016, respectively. No shame there.

Vargas (29-2-2, 11 KOs) earned more stripes battling Adrien Broner and Thomas Dulorme to a pair of majority draws in 2018, before recording a victory in a sixth-round KO of Humberto Soto last April. The latter was his lone performance of 2019, as he negotiated with Golden Boy Promotions later that spring and summer for a possible fight at 154 pounds against Jaime Munguia only for the talks to eventually fizzle out. Little did Vargas know at the time that the fallout from that proposed bout would mark the genesis for the Garcia fight.

"That (Munguia) fight fell off and a few months later, I get a call about fighting Mikey Garcia,” Vargas recalled. “It’s a fight that will generate attention.”

It’s also a fight that Vargas believes he has the tools needed to induce fits in the ring, as he pinpointed weaknesses in Garcia’s inside game and believes his own height and reach advantage will work in his favor on the outside. Plus, Vargas swears that this has been the best training camp of his pro career.

“Only good days,” he said about his camp preparing for Garcia. “Normally, usually in training camp, we have a few bad days which ultimately leads to corrections the following day. This camp, it has only been good days.”

Vargas attributes that to his coaches constantly introducing new wrinkles and isolating specific skills to dedicate the entire day to, whether it be footwork or sharpening his combinations. Looking back on Spence outclassing Garcia wouldn't hurt, either.

That said, if Spence presented Garcia with the reality check that moving up two divisions to face him was overambitious, Vargas wants to be the one to banish the 32-year-old from welterweight for good.

Doing so would be The Pride of Las Vegas’ best day of boxing yet.