Garcia could find a weigh to be legend
THIS old game never fails to enthral. Mikey Garcia’s date with Adrien Broner is a terrific match-up with so much resting on it for both.
Broner can’t afford to fail. To do so against the guy coming up, fighting for the first time at super-lightweight, would torpedo what is left of his reputation as a genuine force.
Garcia (above) is a terrific talent, an unbeaten banger with vicious power. The aim was to unify the belts at lightweight before stepping up, but without that immediate possibility he saw this as an opportunity to test the waters at 140lbs.
If he can take his power up to a fourth weight division there has been talk of a huge contest with Terence Crawford.
Broner (below) is four-weight world champion migrating upwards from super featherweight. He is naturally bigger and settled at 140lbs. Indeed he blows up between bouts, coming down from 160lbs or more, but he still has the speed of a featherweight.
He was once talked of in the same breath as Floyd Mayweather Jnr, but defeats to Marcos Maidana in 2013 and Shawn Porter two years ago, brought him down to earth. Subsequent troubles in his private life, including three days in jail for contempt of court, have left him at a crossroads in his career.
Maidana mauled and dropped him. Garcia doesn’t maul the same way but he hits harder and he is slicker. Not many Mexicans, or those of Mexican heritage as is the case with Garcia, have gone through the weight divisions like he has, a three-division champion from featherweight to lightweight.
In terms of his legacy it is hugely important for him to be trying to add a fourth title at super-lightweight.
It might be hard for him to come back down to 135lbs whatever the outcome but that is what he will have to do if he wants to share a ring with ultimate target Vasyl Lomachenko. What a match-up that would be. Lomachenko wants the challenge and is ready to move up from super-feather to rule at lightweight.
No one offers a greater threat to him than Garcia, one of the most chilling punchers I have seen.
Against that Lomachenko offers variety, movement and speed. But first it’s Broner in New York on July 29, the same night Carl Frampton fights Andres Gutierrez in Belfast.