The seeds for another grudge match between two Mexican-Americans have already been planted. Emiliano Vargas believes a fight against Ryan Garcia could be on par with his father’s 154-pound title bout with De La Hoya.

“My dad taught me if you disrespect me, I’m going to disrespect you tenfold,“ Vargas said on Inside The Ring on Monday. “I’m a cool, respectful guy. If you want to throw shots at me at my fight and the referee, whatever the case may be, if you don’t like the color of my socks, whatever.

“I understand my career because of the attention and everything else that’s going on, is under a microscope. Same thing for Ryan Garcia when he was coming up. I feel that fight is like my dad and Oscar. Two Mexican-Americans, and that was like a Super Bowl, so why not? When the time is right, I think that sells itself.”

After an intense build-up with genuine bad blood, De La Hoya, a former six-division champion and International Boxing Hall of Famer, won the competitive and dramatic grudge match by 11th-round stoppage. The elder Vargas, a former junior middleweight world champion, later tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.

Vargas (17-0, 14 KOs), The Ring’s 2025 Prospect of the Year, and Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) briefly engaged in a back-and-forth on social media. After Vargas’ ninth-round stoppage win over Agustin Ezequiel Quintana on Feb. 28, Garcia posted on X and described it as “one of the worst stoppages” he ever saw.

https://x.com/RyanGarcia/status/2027958182891639290

Days later, Vargas fired back on X, saying he wasn’t on PEDs and would juice next time, taking aim at the WBC welterweight champion’s failed drug tests for the performance-enhancing drug Ostarine in 2024, which led to a one-year suspension and overturned his decision victory over Devin Haney to a no-contest.

https://x.com/emilianofvargas/status/2028619641359347721

Vargas, 21, is still an up-and-coming prospect at 140 pounds who has only been scheduled for 10-round fights twice. He’s ranked by three of the four sanctioning bodies, including No. 5 by the WBO. Garcia, 27, became a world champion for the first time with his dominant unanimous decision over then-WBC 147-pound champion Mario Barrios on Feb. 21.

A potential fight between Vargas and Garcia would likely be one of the biggest in the sport, though, it’ll likely be a while before it’s even a possibility. But if they continue their winning ways and eventually fight in the same weight class, it’s not far-fetched to say Garcia versus Vargas could be the second coming of his father's fight against De La Hoya.

“My father was a part of one of the biggest fights of all time,” Vargas said. “I’m hearing it was like the Super Bowl. There were no replays. There was no social media. At the end of the day, it was such a big event, [and] I want to be a part of big events. I believe that’s a huge fight to make down the line.”