By Dan Ambrose: In a breaking news story, former two division world champion Mikey Garcia (34-0, 28 KOs) has reportedly been released from Top Rank promotions, and he is now a free agent. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum confirmed it himself today.
“I believe that to be the case,” Arum said to esnewsreporting.com, when asked if the 28-year-old Garcia had been released from his contract with Top Rank.
Mikey has been in a stalemate with Top Rank for the past two years since deciding that he wanted to leave the promotional company for other opportunities. It’s now been over two years since Mikey last fought, and there are questions whether he can regain the skills that he showed before his long layoff. Mikey last fought in January 2014 in beating Juan Carlos Burgos by a 12 round decision. At the time, Mikey was the WBO super featherweight champion.
With this long layoff, it’s likely that Mikey will need to fight at 140 in the light welterweight division.
That’s a two division jump from the last weight class that Mikey fought at. He might not have the punching power to fight at the same level that he was accustomed to fighting at when he campaigned at featherweight and super featherweight. Mikey could wind up like Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero, who dominated his smaller opponents at featherweight and super featherweight, but he wasn’t the same fighter when he moved up in weight.
Mikey is now expected to sign with the high powered manager Al Haymon in the coming weeks. Mikey could potentially make a lot of money if he signs with Haymon. His promoter could wind up being someone like Lou Dibella. They may not get their money’s worth in signing Mikey if he fails to realize the potential he showed years ago. Boxing is a sport that you can’t afford to leave for an extended period of time and then come back expecting to be the same fighter. The chances are that Mikey may never be the fighter that he was back in 2014. In that case, his new promoter and manager might not get a great deal in signing him.
If Mikey fights at 140, there won’t be a lot of big names for him to fight other than Adrien Broner, whose future is unclear right now due to his legal problems. Mikey might need to move up to 147 if he wants to get the bigger fights at welterweight. If Mikey can move to welterweight, he would be able to fight the likes of Danny Garcia, Shawn Porter, Amir Khan, Keith Thurman, Robert Guerrero and Errol Spence. Those are good fights for Mikey, but he would need to show that he can hang with those bigger guys.
It’s going to be awfully tough for Mikey to get back to the level that he was at in the past. He’s been out of the ring for a long, long time, and he’s going to need to move up in weight. The fans that Mikey had won over will have likely forgotten about him and moved on.
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