By Dan Ambrose: Mikey Garcia isn’t happy with the results of his 10 round majority decision loss to fringe light welterweight contender Sandor Martin on October 16th at the Chukchansi Park, Fresno, California.
It’s been ten days since Mikey was dominated by the 28-year-old Spaniard Martin (39-2, 13 KOs) in losing by 97-93, 97-93, and 95-95.
Mikey feels that he was doing a lot better than how the judges saw the fight, and he thought he should have been given more rounds based on his aggression. This writer had Sandor winning 98-92 in a one-sided battle.
Mikey hadn’t fought in 20 months heading into the match with Martin, and it showed. He looked short, fat, and slow against Sandor.
The way Mikey fought, you could tell that he’s not going to improve much for his next fight, and it would be a bad idea for him to fight a top contender at 140 like Regis Prograis.
There’s no way that fight can happen now because the money that Mikey and Regis will want won’t be there from DAZN.
Mikey needs to slowly build himself back up by fighting fringe contenders at 140 and hoping they don’t beat him as Sandor did.
You can’t put Mikey in with a top 10 contender at 140 because they’ll likely beat him just as easily as Sandor did.
MIKEY TO FIGHT IN 4 MONTHS
“Yeah, I want to get back, and I don’t want to take too much time off in between,” said Mikey Garcia to Fighthype in wanting to return to the ring soon.
“This last year and a half wasn’t necessarily my choice, and it’s not like I wanted to take a whole lot of time off.
“I got to remind people that COVID did happen last year where everybody stopped boxing, not just me. I fought in February 2020, right before the pandemic and everything.
“Then I didn’t have a fight for the whole year. Then earlier this year, I was trying to secure a fight with Manny, and it didn’t happen. It’s not like I didn’t want to be in the ring.
“It just didn’t happen. Now I want to get back. I’m not happy with the last fight’s results, and I’m not happy with the way it went. I thought I did a lot better than I got credit for, but that’s all right.
“It’s just boxing, whatever. I got to get back in there and show everybody that there’s still so much more. I’ll be fighting in six months or less because I don’t want to be taking too much time off.
“Give me four months, and I’ll be back. I would fight a little differently. I thought I did fine; I thought I did better. Being the aggressor in the fight, I thought that was giving me good scoring, but the judges didn’t see it the same way.
“That’s the way boxing goes sometimes. Judges will score times in favor of the aggressor or will score in the favor of the boxer. In this case, they scored it more in favor of Martin.
“I think he got more credit than what he actually earned just for the fact that I wasn’t as effective as people expected me to be. They credited him a lot more as if he was causing all that,” Mikey said.
It’s going to be interesting to see who Mikey is matched against when he returns to the ring in the next four to six months.
Mikey says he’ll be back in four months, but that’s doubtful. I can see him coming back in no less than six and likely eight months, maybe nine.
It’s not just a situation where Mikey needs to break the inertia, but his purse requirements. For Mikey to get the money that he wants, he needs to fight popular guys.
With Mikey no longer fighting often, it’s difficult for him to get the fights he wants. Mikey has lost 2 out of his last three fights since 2019, had he looked poor in each one of them.
Sandor RAN AROUND
“The reason he was being more effective than me is because he was running around,” said Mikey on why Martin won more rounds.
“He wasn’t really engaging or trying to engage. Whenever he did try to punch, it was little pitty-pat punches to try and keep me away.
“They weren’t really landing or hurting me. I landed a few shots, and he just ran away after that. Then he wouldn’t engage.
“When someone’s not trying to fight, it complicates things so much more. A southpaw stance always complicates things for every fighter.
“So we knew coming into it that it was going to be tricky because of the southpaw stance, and he’s a boxer.
“But when someone is really not trying to engage, it complicates things a lot more. If I were to fight him again, I would fight a little different because I wouldn’t want the score to be so much in the air like that.
“I would try to fight differently to get a clear victory to where. Even if you don’t knock him out, you can tell I won.
“A lot of the rounds were low in action and hard to judge because there wasn’t a lot of dominance in either one.
“I wasn’t able to dominate rounds clearly, and he wasn’t able to dominate rounds clever. There were a lot of rounds where it depends on who you want to favor.
“Do you want to score in favor of the aggressor or score in the favor of the boxer. They’re kind of in the air because he wasn’t dominating any of the rounds like that,” said Mikey.
Sandor was using movement, but he was there to be hit when Mikey trapped him against the ropes. The reason Mikey couldn’t land is the defensive ability and fast hands of Sandor.
As slow as Mikey looked, Sandor would have carved him up if he’s stayed stationary for the entire ten rounds.
GARCIA WANTED 12 ROUND FIGHT
“He wasn’t landing punches at will like a real boxer-puncher normally does, and I wasn’t as dominant as I probably could have been,” Mikeys said about Martin.
“I was also being cautious because he was running around, and the score was kind of in the air.
“Neither one of us was dominant. So maybe the next time around, I can try to be a little more dominant so that it doesn’t leave that in the air.
“I also would have liked it to have been a 12 round fight vs. a 10 round fight,” said Mikey.
“I thought I was coming on a little bit better in the end. We were exchanging some punches.
“He was actually exchanging some punches in the last rounds. So maybe those last two rounds would have helped because it would have given me more of an opportunity to connect more shots and more punches because he was starting to engage a little bit.
“So, I would have liked the fight to be a 12 round fight. That’ll always be more helpful,” Garcia said.
It wouldn’t have made any difference if the fight were 12 rounds, as Sandor looked even better in the ninth and tenth rounds than he had in the earlier part of the fight.
It’s troubling that Mikey can’t see for himself from watching the fight that he was overmatched against Martin, and he didn’t have the size, speed, youth, or talent to beat this guy.
If Mikey wants to test his theory about him being better off in a 12 round fight, he should lean on his promoter Eddie Hearn to have him set up a rematch with Sandor.
Unfortunately, I don’t think DAZN would be willing to pay the kind of money that Mikey would be looking for in a second fight with Sandor.
Mikey needs to fight recognizable opposition to bring in the subscribers to DAZN, and I don’t think he can beat any talented fighters at 140 or 147.
At this point, Mikey loses to the ‘Four Kings’ at lightweight and the four top guys at 130.
MIKEY RETURNING TO 140
“Yeah, 140,” said Mikey when asked what weight class will he fighting in for his next bout. “Even though there was a catchweight at 145, I weighed in at 143.6.
“I was comfortable. I know 140 is not a problem for me at all. So my next fight will be at 140. I’ll be back.
“Give me no more than six months, four months probably,” said Mikey when asked about his timeline for his next fight.
Mikey needs to take a good look at himself and realize that he’s too small, slow, and fat to be fighting at 140. He weighed in at 143.6 lbs for his catchweight fight against Sandor Martin on October 16th, and he looked fat and slow at that weight.
Mikey needs to get hooked up with a good nutritionist and physical trainer to help get back down to 135, 130, or 126. If he watched his diet, stayed active, and trained more often, he could easily make 135 or 130.
Mikey has got to stay off the fast food and stay active because it’s not going to work if he’s fighting every 20 months.
I don’t see any of the top guys at 140 that Mikey can beat at this point in his career. If he can’t beat Sandor Martin, he’s not going to have much luck with the top 140-pounders. Sandor is a fringe contender and not one of the top fighters at 140.
Mikey would likely lose to all of these 140-pounders:
- Josh Taylor
- Regis Prograis
- Viktor Postol
- Jose Ramirez
- Jose Zepeda
- Subriel Matias
- Shakhram Giyasov
- Gary Antuanne Russell
- Jeremias Ponce
- Arnold Barbosa Jr
- Mario Barrios
