Garcia pauses his pursuit of big fights for fourth belt
Mikey Garcia is well aware that few outside of hard-core boxing fans know his Saturday night opponent, Russia’s Sergey Lipinets.
What matters to Garcia, the unbeaten lightweight champion from Riverside, is that beating Lipinets would give him a belt in a fourth weight class.
That, combined with his undefeated record, would give him significant cachet as Garcia pursues the type of bigname opponents he’s promised to fight.
“This is the fight that will have opened the door for even bigger fights,” said Garcia, 30. “It’s going to be the first of many big fights.”
The bout at San Antonio’s Freeman Coliseum will be televised on a card that begins at 7:15 p.m. PST on Showtime.
Garcia (37-0, 30 knockouts) has taken some heat for the choice of International Boxing Federation 140-pound champion Lipinets (13-0, 10 KOs), but Garcia’s talent is unquestionably special.
That interest inspired a visit to his brother-trainer Robert Garcia’s gym in Riverside last month by UFC President Dana White, who has announced his intentions to enter boxing promotion. White was mum about the trip during a recent interview with The Times, but smiled when it was suggested that Garcia could be “a good place to start” such an endeavor.
After sitting out of boxing for three years while mired in a contract dispute with Bob Arum’s Top Rank promotion company, Garcia backed off agreeing to a multifight deal with Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions for bouts with Miguel Cotto and lightweight champion Jorge Linares.
The choice of the hard-hitting Lipinets seemed odd, but Garcia said this week, “I know that at the end of my career I’ll get the credit I deserve.”
His options for major bouts are plentiful. If Linares and super-featherweight champ Vasyl Lomachenko can strike a deal to fight May 12, the winner of that bout will join unbeaten welterweight champions Keith Thurman and Errol Spence Jr. as possible opponents for Garcia.
A rematch for the World Boxing Assn. junior-welterweight title between Rances Barthelemy and Kiryl Relikh is the Showtime co-main event.
Quigg faces Valdez at StubHub Center
England’s Scott Quigg (34-1-2, 25 KOs) acknowledges he’s preoccupied with his bid to win a world title for the second time Saturday night against Norwalk-trained World Boxing Organization featherweight champion Oscar Valdez (23-0, 19 KOs) in the ESPN-televised main event at StubHub Center. The broadcast begins at 7:30 p.m.
“This would be the biggest win, the biggest achievement of my career,” Quigg said. “It’s on a big platform, and I know [StubHub] is known as the ‘war grounds,’ so I believe this is a fitting backdrop for this fight.”
Quigg, 29, a former superbantamweight champion whose lone defeat is to former two-division champion Carl Frampton of Northern Ireland, bases his claim on the fact that he and Valdez sparred against each other six times before bouts last year.
“Put it this way: The fans are in for a real treat,” Quigg said.
Valdez was knocked down in his most recent title defense, in September, and Quigg is counting on his confidence, versatility and ability as a ring general to again exploit the champion.
“I have a lot of respect for Oscar, [an] exciting fighter. He wants to be the best. To consider yourself the best, you have to fight the best,” Quigg said. “This is a voluntary defense, not a mandatory, and I will go out there and make them regret choosing me.”
Quigg weighed in at a stunning 2.8 pounds over the featherweight limit of 126 on Friday. Quigg was fined 20% of his purse, with half of that total going to Valdez.
The fight is on, but Quigg won’t be able to dethrone Valdez. The WBO belt is on the line only for Valdez and if Quigg wins, the belt becomes vacant.
Valdez promoter Arum said the assignment for his champion proves “I’m not going to do fights on ESPN that are walkovers … you can’t expect boxing to grow with mismatches.”
Quigg hails from Bury, England, where “it’s always raining,” perhaps an omen with showers in Saturday’s forecast.
“I’ll be singing in the rain,” he said.
Local Olympian Mayer has big plans
The StubHub undercard includes a junior-lightweight bout for 2016 U.S. Olympian Mikaela Mayer of Woodland Hills, who’s off to a 3-0 start as a pro and, after spurning an offer from Bellator MMA, is determined to raise the profile of women’s boxing beyond the level enjoyed by women’s mixed martial arts.
“This is what I dreamed of. I knew I didn’t want to abandon my sport,” Mayer said.
She added: “I always knew I could be the exception, that I could make it work in boxing by myself.”
Mayer plans to fight two six-round bouts followed by two eight-round bouts this year before possibly reaching a 10-round bout by year’s end.
Her goal is to one day face Ireland’s World Boxing Assn. lightweight champion Katie Taylor, who has sparked widespread interest in women’s boxing in Europe.
“I’m building my career to that … it’s a huge fight for the future,” Mayer said. “The way I see it, people will be really tuned into women’s boxing by then.”