By Aragon Garcia: Four division world champion Mikey Garcia (39-0, 30 KOs) reveals that he added close to 10 pounds of muscle gain in bulking up to 160 pounds for his fight against IBF welterweight champion Errol ‘The Truth’ Spence Jr. (24-0, 21 KOs) for their fight in 1 1/2 weeks from now on FOX Sports pay-per-view at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The PPV action starts at 9:00 p.m. ET/6:00 p.m. PT.
In looking at Mikey’s new physique, he looks chiseled, like a natural welterweight. You could never tell from looking at Mikey’s transformed physique that he was only recently fighting at lightweight in his last fight against Robert Easter Jr. last July. Mikey, 31, has changed his physique that much, with him now looking ripped to shreds like he’s been going on a bodybuilding regimen. Mikey says he’s now been pushing back his bigger sparring partners in training. He’s sparring guys that are much bigger than him. Some of them are middleweight, which means their as big or bigger than the 5’9 1/2″ Spence. Mikey feels stronger with the new muscle mass that he’s put on for the fight, and sees the results training camp when he spars bigger guys than him.
Mikey has since stripped down some of the muscle mass that he’s put on to get down to a powerful 152 pounds, which is his normal walking around weight for him between fights. The difference is, Mikey now carries that 152 lbs, and is solid muscle instead of it being his out of shape weight. Mikey predicts that Spence will come into the fight in the low 160s on the night of their fight on March 16 on Fox PPV, so he’s going to have a small weight advantage. If Mikey’s 152 lbs remains constant up to the fight of the fight, Spence might outweigh him by 10 to 12 lbs if he comes into the fight in the low 160s.
“Look, I’m not a natural big welterweight, and also, I’m never expected to be a natural guy like that, but you can always try to bulk a little bit more mass and that’s all I tried to do,” Mikey said to Fighthype. “I didn’t try to stretch my body into The Hulk. About six to eight pounds to my normal walking around weight [of 152 pounds],” Mikey said when asked how much muscle mass he put on for the Spence fight with his bulk training regimen. “Actually, I did weigh 160 at the highest, but then we wanted to make sure we kept the speed and the agility and everything. It’s not that I felt slow, but that’s not what I was going to use for the fight. My normal weight is 152 pounds. That’s what I walk around at, and that’s where I’m at right now. I’m comfortable, and I feel good, I feel fast, and I feel strong. When I worked out at the SNAC, I did add a bit of muscle mass. That’s expected. I needed that,” Garcia said.
At 152 lbs, Mikey will be more than big enough to compete with Spence in this fight. With Mikey now almost as heavy as Spence without sacrificing speed and stamina, the size is no longer going to be a factor in this fight. It’s now going to come down to which of the two fighters has the better boxing skills, overall talent, and heart. Mikey is betting that it’ going to be him, and more than a few boxing fans now believe he’s going to pull it off on March 4 by dethroning the unbeaten IBF 147 lb champion Spence. You can say what you want about Mikey moving up 2 weight classes to take this fight, Spence is going to be taking a monstrous step up in class in facing the highly talented Garcia in this fight.
Errol Spence taking a BIG step up in class
From the opposition that Spence has been facing his entire career, Mikey amounts to being a big challenge for Spence. This isn’t Leonard Bundu, Chris Algieri, Lamont Peterson or Carlos Ocampo that Spence will be fighting on March 16. It’ going to be a four division world champion, a fighter that has been a terror in the lower weight classes.
Mikey has been unbeatable his entire career, and now he’s moving up in weight just a little to take on a guy that has been using his size to dominate largely beatable opposition. There are no big names on Spence’s resume other than Kell Brook, but he was coming off of a fifth round injury stoppage loss to former middleweight champion Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin when Errol fought him in May 2017. Brook suffered the same kind of eye injury against Spence that he did in the GGG fight, and that tells you that Kell wasn’t fully ready to be fighting again in a hard fight after suffering his initial eye injury against Gennady only eight months prior to their fight. Brook shouldn’t have been out there against Spence in that fight.
“I didn’t want to be big and try to be a monster, because that’s not who I am,” Garcia said about his bulk training for the Spence fight. “I’m prepared to do anything it takes to win. I feel the same. When you see the numbers, the increase in size and all, the scientific stuff that Victor [Conte] does, you’ll see the difference there. I don’t feel different, but then I see the results in sparring. I’m sparring these big dudes, and I’m pushing them back at times. I’m holding my own. I’m trading punches sometimes. They tell the coach that I’m stronger. ‘He’s not big, but he’s strong.’ That’s when you see that,” Mikey said.
In the undercard of the Spence vs. Garcia card on Fox PPV, former World Boxing Council super middleweight champion David Benavidez fights contender J’Leon Love in a fight that will be thrilling to watch. Benavidez was considered the best talent at 168 before losing his WBC title after testing positive for a banned substance. He was given a short suspension, and he’s now back, ready to resume his career and put himself in position for a world title shot against newly crowned WBC super middleweight champion Anthony Dirrell. With a win over Love, Benavidez will be facing Dirrell in his next fight to regain his WBC 168 lb title.
Former two time heavyweight world title challenger Chris Arreola will also be on the Spence-Garcia undercard, facing Jean Pierre Augustin in a 10 round fight that promises to be an exciting one from start to finish. Arreola can still punch. He just needs to get the rust out, and sharpen up a little to ramp up for another world title challenge at heavyweight. Arreola does well against heavyweights that stand in front of him. As long as he doesn’t have to chase down his opponents, he could be in the thick of things real soon in the race for a title against one of the champions. The best case scenerio for Arreola would be for him to put together six to eight good wins to get a title shot against IBF/WBA/WBC heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua by 2020 or 2021 at the latest. It’ll depend on whether Arreola can be kept really busy so that he’ll get pushed up the heavyweight rankings. The money Arreola can make against Joshua would be life changing.
