By Dan Ambrose: Mikey Garcia (35-0, 29 KOs) looked sensational in his fight last month against Elio Rojas in stopping him in the 5th round last month on July 30 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Former two division world champion Garcia, 28, is now looking to get a title shot against WBC lightweight champion Dejan Zlaticanin or WBO champion Terry Flanagan straightaway if possible.
If either of those fights could be put together, it would Garcia an excellent chance of winning a world title before the end of the year. The World Boxing Council gave Garcia a big helping hand this week with them ranking him at No.2 at lightweight with their organization. What this means is that Mikey will soon be getting a title shot against Zlaticanin even if he choose to steer around him to avoid what could be a very difficult fight.
The World Boxing Organization hasn’t been quite as charitable with their rankings, as they don’t have Mikey ranked at all in their top 15. Without Mikey ranked at in the top 15, it’s highly unlikely that Flanagan will fight him, because he doesn’t need to take a risky fight against him. Flanagan has a much more winnable fight against #1 WBO Felix Verdejo he can potentially take this year if the Puerto Rican fighter is able to come back from his motorcycle accident quickly enough to fight in December.
A healthy Verdejo would be a very tough out for Flanagan. It would be one of those 50-50 fights where either guy could come out on top. Mikey vs. Flanagan would likely be one-sided with Mikey knocking him around the ring before knocking him out.
“The latest: Mikey Garcia wants lightweight title shot, exploring both @DinamitDejan1 [Zlaticanin] and Terry Flanagan. Nothing done yet I’m told,” said Lance Pugmire. “Told by @mikeygarcia that “nothing is confirmed yet” for his involvement in a next fight.”
Mikey would likely beat all of the current lightweight champions without any problems right now. The guys that might give Mikey problems are the next division up in Terence Crawford and Viktor Postol. Those would be tougher outs. Mikey has the punching power to give Crawford and Postol huge problems if he could get to their chins, but it wouldn’t be easy. Crawford moves a lot, and Postol is so tall at 5’11”.
Alfredo Angulo vs. Freddy Hernandez on August 27
The always entertaining super middleweight Alfredo Angulo (24-5, 20 KOs)will be inside the ring this month on August 27 against high level journeyman Freddy Hernandez (33-8, 22 KOs) in a scheduled 10 round fight on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike TV from the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. The Angulo-Hernandez fight will be on the same card as former two division world champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (33-4-1, 18 KOs) in his contest against David Emanuel Peralta (25-2-1, 14 KOs) in the main event of the fight.
Angulo, 34, has seen better days in his once promising career that he started out in 2005 after competing in the 2004 Olympics for Mexico. Angulo lost four out of six fights between 2011 and 2014 in losses to James Kirkland, Erislandy Lara, Saul Alvarez and James De La Rosa. Angulo has won his last two fights in beating Delray Raines and Hector Munoz. Those were both journeyman level fighters, so it wasn’t a big accomplishment that Angulo beat them. It would have been a shock if Angulo had lost to them.
“I love entertaining the fans,” said Angulo. “I want to keep going out there and fighting for the fans. I want to be in big fights that fans remember.
Angulo’s lack of hand speed and size will limit what he can do in the super middleweight division. He’s too slow for him to accomplish big things in this division or any division in my view. There’s not much Angulo can do about his hand speed problem. He would be a beter fighter if he could fight in the junior middleweight division. I don’t think that’s possible though. I think Angulo’s days of fighting in the 154lb division are well past him at this point. He last fought at junior middleweight in 2013, when he was stopped in the 10th round by Erislandy Lara.
In 2009 and 2010, Angulo put together some decent wins in beating Gabriel Rosado by a 2nd round knockout, Harry Joe Yorgey, Joel Julio and Joachim Alcine. However, Angulo was a little faster than and this enabled him to do better against some of these fringe level fighters. Once Angulo’s hand speed slowed down a notch, he started to struggle.
The 37-year-old Hernandez has won his last three fights against lower level fighters Jorge Juarez [x2] and Todd Manuel. Before that, Hernandez had lost seven out of eight fights between 2010 and 2014. That was clearly a bad period for Hernandez’s career. He did beat Luis Collazo in 2011 in winning a 10 round unanimous decision. However, Hernandez lost Andre Berto, Lara, Demetrius Andrade, Delvin Rodriguez, Francisco Santana, Julian Williams and Brad Solomon. Earlier in his career, Hernandez was beaten by Golden Johnson by a 12 round split decision in 2005. With Hernandez winning his last three fights, it’s hard to say whether this is a sign of him improving or his opposition getting worse. I think it’s more of a case of Hernandez being matched against dreadful opposition that he could beat.
It’s hard to know for sure whether Angulo can beat a fighter like Hernandez. Angulo should have been able to defeat James De La Rosa in their fight two years ago in 2014, but he lost to him by a 10 round unanimous decision. You can extrapolate from that defeat that Angulo might lose to Hernandez as well.