JAMESTOWN, Calif. – Heavyweight Antonio Mireles is looking to knock the rust off.
Mireles will face Josue Vargas in a eight-round bout that will be televised tomorrow night on ProBox TV at the Chicken Ranch Casino Resort in Jamestown, California.
Mireles will be returning to action after a November 2023 draw with Skylar Lacy.
“It feels great to be back. I was out of the ring longer than I wanted or anticipated,” the 6ft 9ins Mireles told BoxingScene. “I’m just focused on this fight, getting back into it, like I said, getting the rust off and then after that, it’s whatever they want.”
The bout will mark Mireles’ ProBox TV debut. Mireles says he learned a lot from his draw with Lacy in Stateline, Nevada.
“I started that flight too slow,” Mireles, 8-0-1 (7 KOs) said. Then for the next half of the fight I was trying to play catch up. Thankfully, I was able to walk away with the draw instead of a loss.”
The disappointment of his earlier performance is clear. Mireles, 27, is a 2020 Olympic Trials winner and is approaching his fifth year as a professional.
Vargas of Panorama City, California, holds a record of 5-9-1 (2 KOs), though the 31-year-old Vargas’ has only been stopped once, when he was knocked out in three rounds by Alexander Flores last year.
Mireles aims to add another to that tally tomorrow. He makes it clear that he isn’t overlooking his opponent, though he sees big challenges awaiting him in his future.
“I’ve never shied away from any guy that’s thrown at me,” Mireles of Des Moines, Iowa, said. “I just show up. Half the time, whoever I’m scheduled to fight [at the start of training camp], doesn’t end up being my actual opponent. I try not to read too much into it. I just train the best I can and show up on fight night for the bout.”
Mireles trains at Robert Garcia’s Boxing Academy alongside the likes of Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez and Vergil Ortiz Jnr.
Lucas Ketelle took an unconventional path to boxing, eventually finding his stride in gyms and media. For the past decade, he has hosted the “Lukie Boxing” podcast, filmed training camps for fighters like Arnold Barboza Jnr, Mikey Garcia and Caleb Plant, and worked with top professionals such as Mike Bazzel. Ketelle is also an author of “Inside the Ropes of Boxing,” a guide for young fighters, a writer for ProBox TV, BoxingScene and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Find him on X at @LukieBoxing.
