By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Robert Garcia is very interested in matching his brother former 3 division world champion Mikey Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs) against former 2 division world champion Danny “Swift” Garcia (33-1, 19 KOs) at welterweight.
Robert likes the Mikey Garcia vs. Danny Garcia fight, as does Mikey. Robert says that it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to get fights for Mikey in the remainder of the year against Jorge Linares or Vasyl Lomachenko at 135.
So instead of just fighting no name fighters at lightweight in the last part of 2017, Robert wants Mikey to move up and fight Danny Garcia at welterweight. Robert sees that as an excellent match-up and one that can realistically put together due to the two fighters being with Showtime and Premier Boxing Champions.
“I want to save Danny Garcia for Mikey,” said Robert Garcia to Fighthype. “Mikey wants to fight before the end of the year. Why not [147]? Mikey might come in at 141 or 145, but still fight well. We might have to move up, and Danny Garcia might be looking for a fight before the end of the year,” said Robert.
This would be a tough fight for the 29-year-old Mikey Garcia. He looked weak, slow, and not impressive in his recent 12 round unanimous decision win over Adrien “The Problem” Broner in their fight on July 29 on Showtime. Mikey is better suited for the 135 lb. division. His power carries much further in that division than it does at 140.
Danny can punch with a lot of power at 147, and he would be able to walk Mikey down and overpower him the way he did little Rod Salka. Mikey isn’t Salka, but he’s not much bigger than him. If you throw Mikey in the ring with Danny Garcia, he’s going to make him miserable with his big power shots. Mikey wouldn’t beat Danny in a toe-to-toe battle, that’s for sure.
Mikey would have to run around the ring, box and try and win an ugly decision like he was doing in his fight against Orlando Salido after he gassed out in the 7th round. Mikey even gassed out against Broner in the 7th. Mikey said that he changed things up to box him in the last part of the fight, but it looked more like he was tired and he’d lost what little power he had. If Mikey gasses out against Danny Garcia, he’s going to get taken apart piece by piece.
It would be too easy for Danny. Against a 6-round fighter like Mikey, Danny would do very well. I’m just don’t know that he would take the fight unless he was confident that he could still get a rematch with Keith Thurman by ignoring the WCB ordering him to fight Shawn Porter. Danny probably doesn’t need to fight Porter in an eliminator to get a fight against Thurman. That fight is going to be given to him no matter what he does. Thurman wants to fight Danny a second time. He’s not going to need to be persuaded to make that fight.
If Danny chooses to take the Mikey match instead of the fight against Porter, he’s still likely going to wind up facing Thurman in 2018. It just means Porter will get first dibs at fighting Thurman. It probably doesn’t matter all that much if Danny waits for one more fight to face Thurman in the rematch. The money would be really good for Danny to face Mikey. It wouldn’t be a pay-per-view worthy fight through, even though they could play it up as a Mexico vs. Puerto Rico match-up. Neither of these fighters are popular enough now for a fight between them to be a PPV worthy fight. if they stuck the fight on PPV, it would likely bring in poor numbers.
It’s interesting that Mikey and Robert Garcia aren’t showing a great deal of interest in fighting WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford. He’s just division above Mikey’s lightweight weight class. Why should Mikey skip 140 to fight Danny Garcia at 147 if he has Crawford who would likely jump at the opportunity to fight him at 140 if he showed interest.
Danny Garcia and Shawn Porter have been ordered to fight in a World Boxing Council 147 lb. title eliminator to determine the mandatory challenger for WBC welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman. Danny lost to Thurman by a 12 round split decision last March in a very close fight.
Danny could have won that fight if he hadn’t given Thurman so much respect in the first 6 rounds. If Danny had stared a little earlier with his offense, he could have clearly beaten Thurman. It was a tactical mistake on Danny’s part to ramp up his offense a tad bit late in the contest. If Danny chooses to fight Mikey at welterweight, then he would miss out on his chance to fight Thurman as his mandatory challenger.
”Mikey would love that,” said Robert Garcia about a Mikey vs. Danny Garcia fight.” Brandon [Rios] would give Mikey a good fight, but I’d rather give Mikey [the fight]. That’s my boy…I’d rather go for something might happen. Danny Garcia is possible. Mikey is working with Showtime and PPC. So that has more chance of happening,” said Robert.
I don’t think anyone is talking about wanting to see Mikey fight Brandon Rios. That would be a horrible fight. Brandon really needs to get back in the ring and start fighting some quality fighters and showing that he’s capable of beating a world class level guy before he gets a fight against Mikey Garcia. Rios vs. Mikey would be a far worse fight than the recent Broner-Garcia fight.
Broner looked over-the-hill against Mikey Garcia in their July 29 fight, and I think he pretty much is. But in the case of Rios, it’s been 5 years since he last looked good in beating Mike Alvarado in 2012. Since then, Rios has looked dreadful in losing to Alvarado, Manny Pacquiao and Tim Bradley. Rios’ 9th round disqualification win over Diego Chaves was arguably a robbery in 2014, as Rios was losing the fight with just one to go when the referee suddenly disqualified Chaves for an elbow that he threw in the 9th. I’ve seen the round in slow motion, and I still can’t detect any elbow being thrown by Chaves in the final moments of that fight. Rios should have lost that fight in my opinion. I feel the same way about Rios’ controversial 12 round decision win over Richard Abril in April 2012. If you count those 2 fights as defeats, Rios’ record in his last 8 fights is 3-5. That’s journeyman level. Why would Mikey Garcia want to fight a journeyman? Rios really needs to rebuild his career rather than getting a fight against Mikey. 147 is a terrible weight class for Rios. He needs to go on a diet and drop back down to lightweight, because that’s the only division where he looked good.
More than likely, Mikey isn’t going to get the fight against Danny Garcia in November or December as Robert Garcia is dreaming about. Instead, Mikey will need to make a voluntary defense of his WBC lightweight title against one of the contenders. Mikey should push his promoters to get the best contender available instead of going soft and picking someone from the bottom of the WBC’s rankings. Mikey is good enough to beat the top contenders in the 135-b division without any problems. I’d like to see Mikey defend his WBC title against Ray Beltran, Javier Fortuna, Richard Commey, Yvan Mendy or Denis Shafikov. Those guys would give Mikey a run for his money at 135.
