By Dan Ambrose: Newly crowned WBO featherweight champion Mikey Garcia (31-0, 26 KO’s) defeated Orlando Salido (39-12-2, 27 KO’s) and won his WBO strap by a head-butt that caused an eight round technical decision. After the fight, Mikey called out former two time featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa, saying he’d be willing to fight him at a catchweight.
The chances of Mikey, who isn’t a big name, getting the Gamboa fight will likely come down to whether Gamboa can get a title shot against WBO welterweight champion Timothy Bradley. That’s the fight that Gamboa wants considering it’ll pay a lot more than fighting Mikey.
However, if Gamboa can’t get the fight with Bradley, then he might want to take the fight with Mikey, and I think Gamboa wins that fight as long as he doesn’t get knocked out. That’s the only way Mikey can beat Gamboa seeing that he’s a lot faster than Mikey, and he’s got power almost as good.
I think it’s doubtful that Gamboa will back down to featherweight to fight Mikey because Gamboa is 31 now, and he wants to get bigger fights with more money. Fighting Mikey is a backwards move for Gamboa. The money is at welterweight and Gamboa has a good chance of being an immediate player at that weight. Mikey needs to get a clue and look to move up in weight as well to get bigger fights.
I wouldn’t mind see Mikey face WBC lightweight champion Adrien Broner if Mikey were willing to move up two divisions to make the fight happen. Mikey can forget about asking the much more popular Broner to fight him at a catch weight because he’ll get laughed at, but if Mikey wants the better fights he’s going to have to be willing to move up just like Robert Guerrero did. I don’t think Mikey will do well against a solid fighter like Broner, but at least he’d get a good payday in losing.
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