Mikey Garcia still plans on fighting Linares at 135

By Boxing News - 01/05/2018 - Comments

Image: Mikey Garcia still plans on fighting Linares at 135

By Sean Jones: Despite his odd decision to move up and face IBF light welterweight champion Sergey Linares (13-0, 10 KOs) for his IBF 140lb title on February 10 on Showtime, Mikey Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs) says he plans on going back down to 135 to face Jorge Linares (43-3, 27 KOs).

Mikey is still the WBC lightweight champion, and Linares the WBA and Ring Magazine lightweight champion. Garcia’s decision to move up to 140 to face Lipinets appears to be a feeling out process for him to see if he’s got the talent to fight at a high enough level in this weight class to potentially face Terence Crawford at 147 in the future.

Crawford just moved up in weight to 147, but a fight between him and Mikey is a possibility in the future. Crawford is going to need to prove that he can beat the best at 147 besides just Top Rank guys like Jeff Horn, Manny Pacquiao and Konstantin Ponomarev. Mikey vs. Crawford is no better than if he were to fight someone like Keith Thurman or Danny Garcia. Crawford hasn’t proven himself at 147.

Mikey passed up on the Linares fight to move up to light welterweight to take on Lipinets. If he was offered more money for the Lipinets fight, then it’s understandable. It’s hard to imagine that Mikey will make more fighting Lipinets than he will for a fight against Linares.

I think this is more of a testing ground for Mikey to see if he can hang with guys at 140 than it being a fight that has any relevance. The 140lb division is dead on arrival now that Crawford, Danny Garcia and Lamont Peterson are gone. Beating Lipinets will prove nothing for Mikey other than he can defeat a paper champion that the casual boxing fans have never heard of before.

“Golden Boy and I were in discussions to secure the Linares fight, but they themselves also suggested that we could wait, and we both take interim matches,” Garcia said to RingTV.com. “They feel the financial aspect of the sport will be better if we wait, maybe sometime in the summer.”

So, Golden Boy wants to let the Mikey vs. Linares fight marinate more. I don’t see that as helping make the fight bigger. Linares isn’t a big star in the U.S, and he still won’t be after he beats #15 WBA fringe contender Mercito Gesta (31-1-2, 17 KOs) this month on January 27 on Showtime Championship Boxing at The Forum in Inglewood, California. For Linares to become a star, he needs to face better opposition like Robert Easter Jr.

Linares has been wasting time fighting guys like Luke Campbell, Anthony Crolla and Ivan Cano. Linares needs to take on guys that the U.S boxing fans have heard of. Mikey should have taken the fight with Linares instead of facing Lipinets. If Golden Boy wants to let the Linares-Garcia fight marinate, then Garcia should have moved on and told them no thanks to the idea.

“I still plan on fighting Linares and I would love to fight him at 135. He says he’s willing to go to 140, but I’d prefer if we fight at ’35 so this is the task in front of me first,” said Mikey. “I have to get through this before I can look forward to other fights, but I still look forward to that fight, hopefully we can secure that for this coming year.”

Mikey needs to take these fights when they’re there for him. Moving up to 140 to take on easy marks isn’t going to do anything for him. Easter wanted to fight Mikey, but he didn’t want that work. So now he’s fighting a guy that struggled to win the IBF 140lb belt against Akhiro Kondo in his last fight in November.