Mikey Garcia got away with pushing Salido a lot

By Boxing News - 01/20/2013 - Comments

garcia22By Dan Ambrose: Mikey Garcia defeated WBO featherweight champion Orlando Salido last night by an 8 round technical decision, but the way that Garcia won it left a lot to be desired. The fight was stopped after the 8th due to Garcia saying he couldn’t breathe from a broken nose. What seems to be forgotten by fans is what Mikey was frequently doing when Salido would attempt to come forward to land shots.

Garcia would back away while taking his lead hand to steer Salido’s head to keep him from getting close. You’re not supposed to do that in boxing. That’s basically a stiff arm, and it’s pretty sad that the referee allowed Mikey to get away with that move.

If you have a fighter that is reaching out to push on another fighter’s head to keep them from coming forward, it definitely gives the fighter doing the pushing a big advantage.

Picture a taller guy with zero inside fighting skills reaching out to put his hand on the head of his shorter opponent to keep them from getting close while you’re backing away. That’s what Mikey was doing a lot last night and the referee did zero to stop him. The referee should have stopped the action early in the fight and given Mikey a stern warning to stop doing that or else points would be taken away, but that didn’t happen.

I know Salido has received a lot of criticism for his accidental head-butt in the 8th round, but that’s really the only thing that you could call a roughhouse tactic on Salido’s part, and the thing is it was accidental. Salido didn’t try to ram heads with Mikey.

There’s no proof whatsoever that he attempted to do that. But you can definitely see that Mikey was reaching out with his arms and pushing Salido’s head away when he would come forward to try and land his shots. Mikey didn’t do this every time, but he definitely used that move a lot because I saw the same tactic in every round of the fight and the referee did nothing to stop it.



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