By Dan Ambrose: Errol Spence Jr. plans on attending this Saturday’s Mikey Garcia vs. Robert Easter Jr. lightweight unification fight this Saturday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. WBC lightweight world champion Mikey, 30, has been talking about wanting to challenge the unbeaten Spence Jr. (24-0, 21 KOs) for his International Boxing Federation welterweight title if he defeats IBF 135-pound champion Easter Jr. (21-0, 14 KOs) in their televised fight on Showtime this Saturday night on July 28.
Spence is willing call Mikey’s bluff, which is why he intends on coming to the fight and seeing it live. If Mikey is serious about facing Spence, the two of them will get a head start in marketing their fight to the boxing public this Saturday night. Of course, Mikey is going to need to win his fight against Easter Jr. and look good in doing so. If Mikey loses or struggles to win, then it would be pointless for him to step up two divisions to face the bigger, stronger 5’9 ½” Spence at welterweight.
Spence walks around in the 170s. His weight is similar to middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin. The 5’6” Mikey will be giving away a tremendous amount of size and power against Spence. This would be the first time in Garcia’s career that he would be a huge underdog, which would take the pressure off him for a change, but it would still be awfully tough for him to get out of the fight without ending up as a knockout victim.
“We’ll see how that [Garcia-Easter] materializes,” PBC spokesman Tim Smith said to the latimes.com. “If it’s makeable, it’ll get made.”
If nothing else, having Spence letting the boxing world know that he’ll be coming to see the Garcia-Easter Jr. fight live at the Stables Center this Saturday will increase interest from fans. Right now, the Garcia vs. Easter Jr. fight has failed to catch the imagination of the public, who aren’t excited at the fight despite it being a unification match. The fans have certain guys that they want to see Mikey facing, and Easter Jr. isn’t one of them. The boxing fans want to see Mikey face Vasyl Lomachenko, Spence, Jorge Linares, Jose Ramirez, Regis Prograis, Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia. Some of those fights may happen one day, but not likely anytime soon.
“I didn’t know [Spence] was coming, but if he’s coming, that shows interest,” Mikey Garcia said to Lance Pugmire of the latimes.com “He has obviously heard what I’ve been saying and is paying close attention.”
Last year, Mikey moved up to light welterweight to defeat former four division world champion Adrien ‘The Problem’ Broner by a 12 round unanimous decision on July 29 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. However, Broner is no longer a world champion level fighter at 140, so Mikey didn’t receive the credit that he should have received for the victory. The top guys at light welterweight nowadays is Regis Prograis, Jose Ramirez, Kiryl Relikh, Maurice Hooker, Ivan Baranchyk, Josh Taylor and Alex Saucedo.
Following Garcia’s victory over Broner, he then defeated IBF 140-pound champion Sergey Lipinets by a 12 round unanimous decision in a fight that was closer than the scores handed down by the judges on March 10 in San Antonio, Texas. Mikey won the fight, but the performance was less than what many boxing fans had hoped for.
For his part, Spence stopped his IBF mandatory challenger Carlos Ocampo in the 1st round last June with a hard body shot. The fight was thought to be a mismatch going into it, and it turned out to be exactly that. Ocampo never stood a chance against Spence.
Garcia would be showing tremendous courage in facing Spence, and even if he were to lose to him, boxing fans would give him respect for having taken the fight.