By Allan Fox: Mikey Garcia weighed in at 139 ½ pounds on Friday afternoon for his title fight on Saturday night against IBF World light welterweight champion Sergey Lipinets (13-0, 10 KOs) at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas. Lipinets weighed in at 139 ¾ lbs.
(Photo credit: Amanda Westcott/SHOWTIME)
This is Lipinets’ big opportunity to make a name for himself by beating the favored Garcia. Lipinets is a big underdog in the fight, so he doesn’t have to deal with expectations. There’s no pressure on the Belarusian fighter, as the boxing public sees him as having little chance of winning. Lipinets doesn’t have the experience at the pro or amateur level that would suggest that he can win this fight. That doesn’t mean Lipinets can’t use his natural size and power to beat Garcia, but it won’t be easy.
Lipinets will need to walk through a lot of big shots to cut off the ring on Garcia and wear him down. Garcia will stay on the move and make it difficult for Lipinets to catch up to him.
The 5’7” Lipinets will have a 1-inch height advantage over the 5’6” Garcia, and likely a weight advantage by the time he finishes rehydrating for the fight on Saturday. The size advantage could help Lipinets walk Mikey down and beat him.
This is Mikey’s chance to try and win a 4th division world title. That’s what this fight is all about. Mikey put a much bigger fight on hold against WBA lightweight champion Jorge Linares so that he could win a 4th division world title. That move was a mistake on Mikey’s part, because Top Rank swooped in and is in the process of seeing of a fight on May 12th between their guy Vasyl Lomachenko and Linares.
Mikey wanted to win a world title at 140 anyway, because his goal is to move up to 147 and win a 5th division world title. If Mikey succeeds at that, don’t be surprised if he goes up to 154 in search of a 6th division world title. It’s not too likely Mikey win a world title at 147 unless he can get a fight against WBA World welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse. The 35-year-old Matthysse is vulnerable enough for Mikey to possibly beat him if he doesn’t get hit too much by the powerful Argentinian.
Despite being the champion, Lipinets, 28, is the B-side in the fight. Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs) is the main draw of the two fighters in the main event, and the biggest attraction by far on the Showtime Boxing card.
In undercard weights, unbeaten Rances Barthelemy (26-0, 13 KOs) weighed in at 139 ½ pounds for his rematch with Kiryl Relikh (21-2, 19 KOs). Relikh weighed 140 pounds. Barthelemy and Relikh will be competing for the vacant WBA light welterweight title that was recently vacated by champion Terence Crawford.
Barthelemy, 31, and Relikh fought each other last May in a fight that ended with the Cuban fighter winning a controversial 12 round unanimous decision. The judges seemed to be watching a different fight than the one the boxing fans were watching at home at live, as they felt that Relikh had done enough to deserve the victory. It was the second consecutive fight in which Barthelemy was involved in a controversial decision. In his fight before that, Barthelemy beat Mickey Bey by a questionable 12 round split decision.
