By Dan Ambrose: Undefeated featherweight contender Mikey Garcia (29-0, 25 KO’s) will be back in the ring next month against Jonathan Victor Barros (34-3-1, 18 KO’s) in a 10 round fight on the Erislandy Lara vs. Vanes Martirosyan card in a card that will be televised by HBO from the Wynn Resort, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

On paper, it looks like the #1 WBO Garcia is taking a good fighter for a change in the 28-year-old Barros, but when you look closely to Barros’ resume you’ll see that he’s been beaten in two out of his last three fights, and then you’re not so excited about this fight. The knock on Garcia, beside his stiff and robotic fighting style, is that he’s been matched against mostly weak 2nd and 3rd tier opposition during his six year pro career that you can learn nothing from looking at his resume.

All it shows you is that Garcia has done a good job of beating weaker opposition. However, if you took a lot of the top fighters at featherweight and fed them the same guys that Garcia had been brought up you’d arrive in many cases with the same type of unbeaten record that Garcia has, but perhaps with not quite as many knockouts. Garcia can punch, but he’s not much more powerful than some of the good featherweights in the division.

Barros doesn’t have a lot of quality wins himself. He was beaten by Yuriorkis Gamboa but then later beat Celestino Caballero by a narrow 12 round split decision in July of last year. However, Caballero then turned around and easily beat Barros in their rematch in October of last year. Barros followed that up by beating an easy opponent in Gustavo David Bermudez last June before losing to Juan Carlos Salgado by a lopsided 12 round decision last August. I don’t know about you but I’d rather be seeing Garcia fighting the guys that beat Barros rather than Barros himself.

Garcia will be getting a title shot against WBO featherweight champion Orlando Salido in early 2013 if Garcia gets past Barros on November 10th. If I’m Garcia’s trainer I wouldn’t be crazy enough to throw him in with Salido based on the poor opposition Garcia has fought during his career. I would look to give it another year and I would start from scratch with him by matching him against nothing but quality opposition instead of the guys the’s been facing. I’d also work on teaching Garcia to throw combinations instead of single shots. Garcia is a pot shot fighter that admires his work after throwing punches, and he’s too mechanical.