Gary Tiger Balletto vs Gregorio Vargas #33 🥊 Pro

This fight was my second defense for the IBU World Title, right in my backyard at the Providence Convention Center. And my first Main Event on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights, October 31, 2003. I was scheduled to fight Billy Erwin this night but Billy changed his mind and backed out of the fight two weeks before so I ended up fighting Vargas that night who was training for a different fight at the time. Vargas had tons of experience and was a former world champion. The last time he had lost a fight before this was seven years prior against Floyd Mayweather. This was a fight that was supposed to take my career to a new level, but things didn’t go as planned that night. I had hard time making weight, I had the flu, I had bruised knuckles from training and had to numb them before the fight. I got knocked down with a left hook that broke my nose in the third round; and with the broken nose fought until the 12th and final round, I lost a majority decision that night, after giving it all I had. I think I slept three days after the fight and I had a concussion so severe that I had blurry vision for three months. At only 28 years old, I retired after this fight with the fear of having brain damage.. until...