GRAPEVINE, Texas – Fernando Vargas was never one to duck an opponent.

The list of boxers he faced reads like a roll call of recent greats: Felix Trinidad, Ike Quartey, Oscar De La Hoya, Winky Wright, Shane Mosely. Vargas was almost insatiable in his appetite to fight the best. So when El Feroz was asked if he would have faced a fighter such as Gennady Golovkin if Golovkin rode the Delorean back to 2000, Vargas looked at the inquisitor as if he had sprouted a second head.

“I definitely would have loved to have faced somebody like that,” said Vargas, who is training Gabriel Rosado for his grudge match against Willie Monroe Jr. on the Canelo Alvarez-Liam Smith HBO PPV undercard on Saturday. “I didn’t run from nobody. People think that I was just a brawler. But that’s wrong. I boxed. Definitely (I would have fought him).”

Golovkin is one of the most avoided fighters in the sport, with Alvarez, Billy Joe Saunders, Chris Eubank Jr. and a host of others finding reasons not to face him. Vargas (26-5, 22 knockouts) shook his head at that practice.

“There are just different fighters these days,” said Vargas, the youngest boxer ever to become a junior middleweight champion at 21. “I fought everybody. I didn’t care. To be the best you have to beat the best. I beat five world champions and the four that beat me said it wasn’t easy. I only lost to world champions. So it is what it is.”

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