Jessie Vargas announces congressional run, Liam Smith fight still on table

It’s been an interesting news cycle for Jessie Vargas recently. Just days after news broke that he could face longtime verbal sparring partner Liam Smith in January, the former two-division champion announced on Twitter that he’s running for Congress in Nevada’s 4th district and set up your standard buzzword-filled fundraising website.

According to Dan Rafael, the Smith fight is still on the table. Midterms aren’t until November of next year, so he presumably has plenty of time to get that matchup out of the way before knuckling down for some politickin’.

Vargas (29-3-2, 11 KO), who hasn’t seen action since losing to Mikey Garcia in March of last year, faces an uphill election battle as a Republican. His 11-year-old district has voted Democrat in each of the last three presidential elections, albeit by decreasing margins, and Democrats have won four of its five congressional elections.

For his sake, he’d better stay focused on the task at hand. Smith (30-3-1, 17 KO) is red-hot at the moment and would be the first true super welterweight opponent of Vargas’ lengthy career. We’ll see how well Vargas can juggle things.