(Photo credit: Amanda Westcott/SHOWTIME) By Eric Baldwin: In the best performance from last Saturday night’s Barclays Center card in Brooklyn, New York, former two division world title holder Mikey Garcia (35-0, 29 KOs) beat a very good fighter in Elio Rojas (24-3, 14 KOs) by a 5th round knockout. Rojas, 33, was down twice in the 3th and 5th, but he put up a good fight despite losing.
The final punch stats saw Garcia land 53 of 126 shots for a high connect percentage of 42 percent, according to CompuBox. Rojas landed 47 of 168 punches for a 28 percent connect percentage.
It’s hard to believe that Mikey landed 42% of his punches because he was missing a great deal of the time with his big power shot attempts. He still looked very good for a fighter coming off of a two and a half-year layoff from the ring. The only thing that would make you guess that Mikey had been out of the ring for a long time was the number of times that he was hit by Rojas.
Before Mikey’s layoff, he was rarely hit in his fights. He was also a more active fighter in the ring in attacking his opponents from the first bell. Against Rojas, Mikey was waiting a lot of the time and giving him rounds initially.
Garcia vs. Rojas was the co-feature bout on the Carl Frampton vs. Leo Santa Cruz card. Mikey’s performance against Rojas stole the show in my book. The crowd was very excited by Mikeys explosive power and with the ability that he showed in knowing Rojas down repeatedly in the fight.
“I think it was a very good performance,” Garcia said to espn.com. “Even though I’ve been out for two-and-a-half years, people haven’t forgotten about me. I did miss [boxing], but the time off helped me regain that fire.”
Mikey followed Rojas around the ring in the first two rounds, rarely winding up on any of his big power shots. It looked he was waiting for the right moment to hit fleet of foot Rojas with the perfect shot. The 5’7” Rojas made it hard for Mikey to have a stationary target to land his big shots. He stayed on the move and avoided his traps.
In the 3rd round, Garcia was able to cut off the ring and trap Rojas against the ropes. Garcia hit Rojas with a right hand to the head that put him down. Garcia knocked Rojas down with another big right hand a short time later.
In round five, Garcia put Rojas down with a perfectly placed left hand to the head that sent him down on his face on the canvas. Garcia then followed up with a right uppercut that dropped Rojas again. The fight was stopped by referee Eddie Claudio at that time. He could have let the fight continue, but it was getting out of hand with Mikey knocking Rojas down so many times. Claudio did the right thing in stopping the contest before it had turned into a joke. The fight was stopped at 2:02 of round five.
Mikey might be moving down in weight to the lightweight division to go after one of the titles in that weight class. Last night’s fight against Rojas was at light welterweight. Mikey could also challenge WBC/WBO 140lb champion Terence Crawford in the future if he stays in that weight class long enough for the fight to take place.
“I think it’s too soon to make an assessment [on where I’m at], but I do feel just as good [as before the layoff],” Garcia said.