Welterweight prospect Conor Benn is starting to work his way up the ladder a bit, and the 24-year-old son of Nigel Benn is set to face Colombian veteran Samuel Vargas in a DAZN main event on Apr. 10 from the United Kingdom.
Benn (17-0, 11 KO) is coming off of a very nice all-around performance against Sebastian Formella on Nov. 21, and he’s confident that he’ll continue the good form against Vargas (31-6-2, 14 KO), who last fought in July 2020, stopped in seven by Vergil Ortiz Jr.
Benn tells Sky Sports that no matter how the fight goes, he believes he’ll be fine — but that a first round knockout “wouldn’t surprise” him:
“I can go 10 rounds and flick through the gears. So if he wants to meet in the middle, we can go at it. If he wants to move, I will hunt him down. I can beat him on points by giving him a beating for the 10 rounds. If it doesn’t go 10 or 12, I will knock him out early. I wouldn’t be surprised if I knock him out in one round.”
The 31-year-old Vargas is a decent trial horse sort of fighter, a higher-level gatekeeper, and he’s been stopped three times in his career. Those losses came to Errol Spence Jr in 2015, Danny Garcia in 2017, and Ortiz last year, with Spence getting him out quickest inside four rounds.
While beating Vargas isn’t necessarily going to turn any heads, as Benn is firmly expected to do just that, yeah, I think a first round KO of a tough veteran who has been in with a lot of good fighters over the years would probably get some folks to take notice.
The Apr. 10 card is also set to feature Savannah Marshall defending her WBO middleweight title against an opponent to be announced, and Rachel Ball rematching Shannon Courtenay for the vacant WBO bantamweight title, plus returns for Felix Cash and Kash Farooq as of now.