By Ryan Burton

Sadam Ali (22-0) is less than two weeks away from his first crack at a title.  The unbeaten welterweight will face former super lightweight champion Jessie Vargas (26-1) on March 5th at The DC Armory in Washington DC for the vacant WBO welterweight title. The fight will be the televised by HBO as the chief support to the Luis Ortiz-Tony Thompson headliner.

Ali has been the mandatory challenger for the title for close to a year and has sat out since last April waiting for his shot at the title. 

"Training camp is going great.  I am really excited.  This is a huge fight for me. It is for the WBO and on HBO. I am just ready to perform," Ali told krikya360.com.

"I am really hungry. It took a long time with the whole WBO title situation to play out but I am excited.  This is my time and I am going to take advantage of it.  That is the pretty much the main reason why I haven't fought. I have been the mandatory for Bradley but I had to wait and figure out what he was going to do."

Bradley of course opted to make an optional defense against Brandon Rios in December and then decided to vacate the title and take a more lucrative pay-per-view bout against Manny Pacquiao in April instead of facing Ali.

Ali-Vargas was in play for December 19th but fell apart when Vargas refused to face Ali in his home state of New York while Ali also said that he wouldn't face Vargas in his hometown of Las Vegas or in California where he was born.

With a title winning performance, Ali feels he will be able to dictate when and where his future fights take place.

"It makes sense (to fight in DC) because it isn't in New York and he didn't want to come out there so Washington it is.  It is not too far away but it is not too close.  After I get the title then I will be able to have a little more say in where my fights are at," Ali reasoned.

Vargas raised eyebrows on a recent media conference call to promote the fight. The Top Rank promoted fighter said that his plan is to be aggressive and make Ali quit.  Ali said that he found those comments amusing and said that if anyone quits it won't be him.

"Honestly I don't know what made him say that or think that. I don't know if anybody told him that I ever quit in a fight in the amateurs or in sparring - but you would never hear that in your life. Some people have quit in them and some people don't and I am one of those people who don't.  If anybody quits it will be him.  Everything he says is fine. He has confidence. It is what it is but once he gets in the ring there is no more talking," said Ali.

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