Mikey Garcia will be better than before, says Robert G.

By Boxing News - 02/01/2016 - Comments

garcia324By Dan Ambrose: Trainer Robert Garcia says former two division world champion Mikey Garcia (34-0, 28 KOs) is ready to make a comeback after sitting outside of the ring for the past two years. It’s unclear if the now 28-year-old Mikey will still be with Top Rank when he does return to the ring.

Mikey hasn’t fought since beating Juan Carlos Burgos by a 12 round unanimous decision in January 2014. That’s a long time to be outside of the ring, and you have to figure that Garcia won’t be the same fighter that he was before the long layoff. Robert believes that Mikey will be better than he was before.

He bases this opinion on how Mikey has been looking in the gym while sparring with different people. Robert says that he never sees Mikey lose a round in sparring. That sounds nice, but sparring is a much different thing than fighting. We also don’t know who Mikey has been sparring with in the last two years.

“As of right now, it should be soon, but we’ve been saying that for two years,” Robert Garcia said to Fighthype about Mikey G. making a comeback soon. “I think when Mikey comes back, he’s going to look better than he did before. I think he needed time off. I don’t think I’ve seen him lose a round in sparring, no matter who it is. He’s ready to come back. A lot of people take a lot of time off, and when they come back, they’re no good. Cotto took a year off when he beat [Sergio] Martinez, and came back a year later and looked really good. When Mikey comes back, he’s going to look better than he was before. I didn’t want to see him take that time off, but he just turned 28, so he’s younger. When you see him in the gym, he looks better than he did before. He’s motivated. He’s ready to come back. When he does, I think he’s going to be better than he was before. A few fights later, I think he’ll be at the top of the pound-for-pound list,” Robert Garcia said.

Mikey fought at super featherweight in 2014. If he does come back in 2016, then it’s quite likely that he’ll be fighting in the lightweight division if not at light welterweight. At lightweight, Mikey would need to deal with guys like Felix Verdejo, Terry Flanagan, Jorge Linares, Anthony Crolla and Rances Barthelemy.

I think Mikey could beat Crolla, but not the other top fighters. I see him losing to all of those guys. If Mikey has to move up in weight to the light welterweight division, he’s going to have problems trying to deal with the top fighters like Terence Crawford, Viktor Postil, Adrien Broner and Eduard Troyanovsky.

It might be better for Mikey’s sake to stay at lightweight rather than fight at 140 and suffer losses. Ideally, Mikey should stay at super featherweight and look to recapture his WBO 130lb title from champion Roman Martinez. He could also go after champions Jose Pefraza, Takashi Uchiyama, Francisco Vargas or Javier Fortuna.

I’ll be surprised if Mikey comes back this year. Robert Garcia has been expecting Mikey to make a comeback for quite some time, but he never does. You have to wonder whether he loves the sport enough to want to make a comeback.



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