by David P. Greisman

In the past two years, two future Hall of Fame inductees have been in the corner of Jessie Vargas. First it was Roy Jones Jr., who worked with Vargas ahead of his fight against Antonio DeMarco in November 2014. Then it was Erik Morales, who trained Vargas before his clash with Timothy Bradley last June.

But this time Vargas had Dewey Cooper, a former kickboxer and cruiserweight boxer who fought as a pro from 2001 to 2012. And Vargas says the work he had with Cooper helped lead him capture a vacant welterweight title this past Saturday with a technical knockout of Sadam Ali.

“We worked very hard. We brought out the best in me tonight,” Vargas said afterward. “It was because we were changing it up. I’ve been doing this since I was eight years old. I was having so much fun at that time, hitting everyone with lefts, with rights. I had power in both hands. And recently I’ve been focusing just on one punch, one hand. Dewey brought out that kid in me. I was a kid in there, having fun, changing it up.

“Sadam was trying to time me and it brought me back to when I was a kid. We were having fun. I was touching him here, touching him there, tearing him apart, distracting him, hitting him with shots and he went down. That was the plan we had,” Vargas said. “We are artists in that ring. We have two powerful hands. It was about distracting him with shots. We connected on him with hooks. We connected on him with jabs, right hands, jabs to the body, rights up top. We were just slowly tearing him apart.”

Vargas previously held the World Boxing Association’s “regular” title at junior welterweight — a secondary belt when the WBA also has a “super” titleholder, as it did at the time with Danny Garcia. He’d also benefited from coming out on top with disputed decisions, including a split decision over Josesito Lopez in 2011 and a unanimous decision over Khabib Allakhverdiev in 2014.

He stepped up to welterweight to challenge Bradley last year and was behind on the scorecards when he badly wobbled Bradley in the final seconds. But while Vargas was trying to finish the fight — and Bradley seeking to survive and defend himself —referee Pat Russell mistook the 10-second clapper warning for the final bell and ended things too early.

That was Vargas’s first official pro loss. But Bradley vacated his welterweight title, allowing Vargas to fight for it and win it. The 26-year-old is now 27-1 with 10 KOs.

“It feels great to become a two-time world champion,” Vargas said. “This is what I’ve been waiting for, to give my fans a sensational knockout, and that’s what I did.”

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com