By Sean Jones: Trainer Robert Garcia still isn’t completely sold on Errol Spence despite the job he did on his brother Mikey Garcia last month in trouncing him by a 12 round unanimous decision on March 16 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. When asked who wins in the Spence vs. Shawn Porter fight, Robert couldn’t make a pick.
Robert thinks that Porter will give anyone problems. The way that Robert is talking, it appears that he’s leaning in the direction of Porter (30-2-1, 17 KO).
IBF welterweight champion Spence (25-0, 21 KOs) and WBC champion Porter are said to be fighting in September. The fight still isn’t official, but the two are supposed to be facing each other. Spence wanted to return to the ring in July, but he’ll have to sit out of action for an additional two months if he faces Porter.
“He’s one of those guys because of his style. I always thought the other guys have a chance of winning, but he always kind of wins, Porter,” Robert Garcia said to esnewsporting. “I think Porter with his style is going to be a handful for anybody. Porter gives anybody problems.”
It’s interesting that Robert still can’t pick Spence to win after the way he easily beat Mikey. One would think that Robert would be fully on the Spence train by now after watching him take Mikey to school and give him a boxing lesson for 12 rounds. Will Robert be sold on Spence if he beats Porter with the same ease as he did Mikey or will he continue to have doubts whether he can win in the future when facing top level fighters?
Speaking of Mikey, the boxing fans want to know where he’s at. He’s disappeared since losing to Spence. Is Mikey hiding, licking his wounds or hurt feelings, or is he enjoying the massive money that he made in the fight by traveling? The fans want to see Mikey emerge from wherever he’s at and start talking about what went wrong in the Spence fight, and what he plans on doing with his next fight.
“Nobody right now,” Robert said who’s next for Mikey Garcia. “Not that I know,” Robert said when asked if there’s a chance for Mikey to fight Manny Pacquiao next. “Right now, I don’t think there’s any other fight out there. Porter wants to fight Errol Spence. Danny Garcia is already fighting. I don’t know who’s out there at 140.”
Mikey looked out of touch with reality in the Spence fight with the way he was raising his right arm after each round ended, as if to say to the crowd, ‘I’m winning.’ Mikey wasn’t winning, that’s the entire problem. He was losing and getting thrashed by Spence in a one-sided fight. Obviously, no one was asking for Mikey to slink back to his corner with a look of defeat on his face, but he would have looked better if he wasn’t celebrating the ends of each round the way he did.
It’s quite possible that Mikey is going to stay at welterweight rather than move down to 140 or 135. There aren’t a big money fights for Mikey at 140. If he were to move to that weight class, the fans would expect him to take on the winner of the World Boxing Super Series light welterweight tournament. That means Mikey would be likely facing Regis Prograis or Josh Taylor. Those guys might be too powerful for him. Mikey could fight WBO champion Maurice Hooker, but it wouldn’t be a big fight for him. Going back down to lightweight would put Mikey in a situation where he would have pressure to face Vasiliy Lomachenko. That’s a winnable fight for Mikey, but it’s also one that he could lose and look bad in doing so. The World Boxing Council will probably order Mikey to defend against his mandatory Luke Campbell in his next fight if he moves back down to 135. The only way the WBC will give Mikey a break is if he fights in a unification match against Lomachenko, but again that’s a tough fight for Mikey to take with him coming off a loss to Spence.
Robert is picking WBA/WBC middleweight champion Saul Canelo Alvarez (51-1-2, 35 KOs) to defeat IBF middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (35-2, 29 KOs) in their fight on May 4 on DAZN at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. Robert sees Canelo’s body shots weakening Jacobs and leading him to beating the taller fighter.
“I think Jacobs is a lot taller than Canelo. I think he’s going to use his height and reach advantage to box,” Robert said about the Canelo vs. Jacobs fight.
This is another one of those fights where you can’t really pick who will win. Canelo took damage in his controversial 12 round majority decision victory over Gennady Golovkin in their rematch last September on HBO PPV. Canelo didn’t look nearly as good in his last fight against former WBA ‘regular’ super middleweight champion Rocky Fielding last December. Canelo stopped Fielding in the third round, but he was taking shots and not looking as quick as he was for the two GGG fights. If Canelo is hit as often as Fielding was hitting him by Jacobs, we could see a minor upset. It wouldn’t be that big of an upset though, because Jacobs is one of the best fighters in boxing. Jacobs can do a lot of different things that Canelo hasn’t seen him do in his last handful of fights. Jacobs can box, punch, move, and he can overwhelm his opponents with flurries. You just don’t know what you’re going to get with Jacobs. With Jacobs going against Canelo, it’s pretty clear that he’s not going to fight him the same way he did in his last four fights against Sergiy Derevyanchenko, Maciej Sulecki, Luis Arias and Golovkin. Jacobs knows or at least he should know by now that for him to beat Canelo, he’s going to need to take the fight to him and look to either knock him out or dominate him to such an extent that the judges won’t be confused as to who the winner of the fight is.
