By Allan Fox: Unbeaten featherweight contender Miguel “Mikey” Garcia (27-0, 24 KO’s) will be fighting an easy stay busy fight scheduled for 10 rounds against 39-year-old journeyman Mauricio Pastrana (35-16-2, 23 KO’s) in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico.

Pastrana has lost 9 out of his last 10 fights going into this fight tonight. It’s not exactly inspiring to see the 24-year-old Garcia taking such a soft opponent when his next fight will likely be for the WBO featherweight title against champion Orlando Salido. To go from fighting a guy like Pastrana to fight against Salido might be a shock to Garcia because the talent difference between the two of them are worlds apart.

Garcia, #1 WBO, #2 WBC, really hasn’t fought anyone to deserve a high ranking. He’s got a win over Bernabe Concepcion, Rafael Guzman, Matt Remillard, Olivier Lontchi and Cornelius Lock, but no wins against anyone that you could call a good fighter. Garcia loads up with everything he has on every shot, but he’s not really that much of a harder puncher than Salido to be honest. And Garcia doesn’t throw combinations like better fighters do. He throws one punch at a time, and then admires his work as if he expects his opponents to topple over.

In a lot of cases they do, but that’s more of a product of weak matchmaking than Garcia being a big puncher. He just looks like a really stiff fighter that lacks flexibility and the ability to throw combinations. He’s going to get beat up bad against Salido when that fight happens.

Once Garcia loses, I hope his trainer does it right by putting him in with the right kinds of opponents to have his learn to throw combinations against guys that will give him some rounds so that he can learn something. He’s got so many bad habits from all that easy matchmaking that it’s going to be tough on him to start from scratch after he gets beaten by Salido.