Mills will attempt something similar, though literally and figuratively on a smaller scale, when he encounters Emiliano Vargas on Saturday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The unknown junior welterweight wanted this bout badly because it’ll afford him the chance to knock off The Ring’s reigning “Prospect of the Year” in DAZN’s co-feature before Xander Zayas defends his WBA and WBO 154-pound crowns against Jaron “Boots” Ennis in the main event.

“It’s a massive opportunity for me,” Mills told The Ring. “This is the time to show what I already know and my team already knows. Now it’s just time to do it in front of the bright lights and show what I have to the world. I know everybody’s gonna like what they see. I hope I prove the doubters wrong. They may not think I deserve this opportunity, but I’m gonna prove ‘em wrong and show ‘em it’s well deserved and I’m gonna be a future world champion.”

The charismatic, photogenic Vargas, 22, has been touted as a future star since he signed with Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. in October 2022. The youngest son of former junior middleweight champ Fernando Vargas, who trains Emiliano (17-0, 14 KOs), has performed accordingly.

Las Vegas’ Vargas is also a masterful marketer who has used social media to build his brand. An appearance alongside Zayas during Bad Bunny’s memorable Super Bowl LX halftime show four months ago expanded Vargas’ visibility well beyond boxing and made Mills want to fight him even more.

“He’s a very talented fighter,” Mills said. “It’s absolutely nothing against Vargas. I wanted this fight because he won ‘Prospect of the Year’ and he is regarded as the hottest prospect out there, the guy to beat. And if you can beat the guy, then what does that make you? You’re in the best position you can possibly be in.”

The largely anonymous Mills (22-1, 9 KOs) took a completely opposite path than Vargas toward this 10-round fight.

A native of Liverpool, New York, a suburb of Syracuse, Mills made his pro boxing debut amid no fanfare whatsoever in October 2020. He turned to boxing during the COVID-19 pandemic only because opportunities in kickboxing were scarce.

Mills made his pro kickboxing debut in Dubai, when he was just a 17-year-old junior at Liverpool High School. He competed only once more in kickboxing before solely focusing on boxing.

Mills estimated that it wasn’t until his 13th or 14th professional fight that he actually made a profit from his boxing career.

His last fight, a third-round stoppage of Julio Rosa in Rochester, epitomized Mills’ struggle to earn a living on the club circuit. Mills still hasn’t been paid his $30,000 purse from that victory April 25 and figures legal action will be required for him and other fighters who competed to receive their earnings from the local promoters who admittedly underestimated the cost of the event.

“None of the fighters have been paid, as far as I know, to this point,” Mills said. “I know I’m gonna get my money one way or another. I’m not really stressing over it at the point, but I do feel bad not only for myself, but the other people who were relying on that paycheck to pay some of their bills and to support their life.

“They still haven’t gotten that money, so it’s very sad. Whether it’s in court or not in court, I do believe all the fighters eventually will be paid. But it’s just sad that it has to go this far and to this extent, where there may possibly be charges pressed on them and they may have to go to court for it.”

Mills will have no such issues competing on a show co-promoted by Top Rank (Zayas) and Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing (Ennis). Unlike his easy victory over Rosa, the potential problem for Mills is his fight versus Vargas, not the financial backing of the event.

Mills, 24, has won 16 straight fights since he was upset by Ryan Pino (then 8-7-2) in October 2021. He considers that six-round, split-decision defeat the invaluable lesson he needed to revamp his training team and regularly get better sparring in Rochester, approximately a 90-minute drive from where he lives.

“It is a tough way to make a living, especially how I came up, as an unsigned fighter, a fighter who didn’t have a huge amateur career [16 fights],” Mills said. “I had to come up the hard way. This sport was costing us money up until around my eighth fight. That’s when I was fortunate enough to have a lot of sponsors surrounding me, who were helping me build my career. But this has been a very, very hard journey.”

Conversely, Vargas, a 14-1 favorite according to DraftKings, is already ranked No. 2 among the WBO’s contenders for Shakur Stevenson’s 140-pound title. He told The Ring recently that he expects to fight for a junior welterweight championship within two fights after he meets Mills.

“People have every right in the world to think of me as the underdog,” Mills said. “They’ve never seen me before and I’ve never performed on a stage this big. So, how would people know? But this is the opportunity to show people what I have. After this fight, they will know who I am.”