By Dan Ambrose: Negotiations have started between WBC World lightweight champion Mikey Garcia (37-0, 30 Kos) and WBA 140 lb. champion Jorge Linares (43-3, 27 KOs) for a unification fight, according to the World Boxing Council.
This is a fight that has been talked about for a while ever since Mikey captured the WBC 130 lb. belt earlier this year in beating Dejan Zlaticanin by a 3rd round knockout.
Former world champion and current Showtime Boxing commentator Paulie Malignaggi is leaning towards Mikey to beat Linares. Malignaggi sees Mikey as being the more complete fighter of the two right now, but he likes Linares as well.
“Mikey is a little more sturdy and durable, but Linares is a good fighter,” said Malignaggi to ES News Reporting about the Milkey Garcia vs. Jorge Linares fight. ”They’re both good fighters, but Mikey is a guy that is a little more complete and a little more sturdy,” said Malignaggi.
Mikey will need to come down from 140 to take the fight, because his last fight was against former 4 division world champion Adrien “The Problem” Broner on July 29th at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Mikey fought well for 6 rounds, but then appeared to tire and coast in the last half of the fight. Mikey still did enough to get the win by the scores of 116-112, 117-111 and 116-112.
Mikey would later say that he chose to box the last 6 rounds so he wouldn’t get hit with anything big from a desperate looking Broner, but it looked to me and to Boxing News 24 that Mikey was exhausted and incapable of fighting hard. If Mikey’s stamina isn’t better for the Linares fight than it was in the Broner fight, he could lose. Linares is a guy that fights well for the full 12 rounds. He’s not going to gas out after 6 rounds like Mikey appeared to do against Broner.
Linares, 32, is a little bit older than the 29-year-old Mikey, but he’s fighting at a prominent level right now. Linares didn’t take nearly 3 years off from boxing the way that Mikey did from January 2014 to July 2016. Mikey had promotional issues that issues that caused him to lose 2 ½ years of his pro career. Mikey has won his last 3 fights since making a comeback against Elio Rojas on July 30 last year. Mikey then beat Zlaticanin and Broner.
Linares defeated #1 WBA Luke Campbell (17-2, 14 KOs) by a 12-round split decision last month on September 23. That was a tough fight for Linares, but he showed that he could beat a younger, bigger and stronger guy than himself. On top of that, Campbell was a southpaw, which made things even harder for him. That was a good fight for Linares to get ready for the Mikey Garcia contest.
Linares had a tougher opponent that what Mikey recently had against a weight drained looking Broner. There was a time in Broner’s career when he was a good fighter, but he seems to be really going downhill lately. Linares would have a good shot at beating Mikey if that fight gets put together.