Mikey Garcia v Jessie Vargas

Mikey Garcia sees Jessie Vargas fight as chance to prove himself at 147, wants Manny Pacquiao next

One of the things that makes Mikey Garcia great is also the same thing that can get him into trouble at times.

He has a deep and nearly unshakeable belief in himself, confidence borne of success day after day in the gym and night after night under the bright lights of competition at the highest level.

Tell Garcia he can’t do something and he’ll almost instantly try to prove you wrong. He has confidence almost to the point of arrogance, which led him to challenge Errol Spence Jr. in March for the IBF welterweight title.

Spence is a massive welterweight who has long been among the best pound-for-pound fighters in the sport. Garcia is a one-time featherweight who’s probably best suited at lightweight, but he looked at the landscape of the sport, sought the biggest challenge and landed on a guy who wouldn’t look out of place fighting middleweights.

It was no contest from start to finish, as Spence outboxed Garcia easily.

Nine months later, Garcia looked back and finally relented, at least a little.

“It was a difficult night and a bad match-up for me stylistically,” Garcia told Yahoo Sports. “He used his reach really well and that complicated things for me. It might have been too early for me to jump in there to the welterweight division. It was a good challenge and it was something I wanted to do. It didn’t go my way, but I want to show there is a lot more of me as a welterweight than what you saw that night. And remember, I was never hurt. I never got caught. I didn’t get busted up.”

https://s.yimg.com/it/api/res/1.2/Xe...7-c7db1b6a89f6

After that fight, Garcia mulled his options before deciding to return to welterweight for another test. This time, he chose to face former two-division champion Jessie Vargas on Feb. 29 in Frisco, Texas.

Vargas isn’t the puncher at welterweight that Spence is — few are — but he hits hard enough that he nearly put Timothy Bradley out in their 2015 bout in Carson, California. Bradley was badly hurt, though not down, when referee Pat Russell appeared to wave off the fight with seven seconds left. But Russell had made an error, saying he thought he’d heard a bell.

Vargas said losing that chance to throw the one additional punch he felt he needed to finish Bradley cost him. But by hurting Bradley as he did, Vargas did something that not even the legendary Manny Pacquiao did in three fights with Bradley.

https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/mik...220440134.html

Good fight, but I think Mikey Garcia should fight lower than the welterweight

I think that Garcia is really good. The Spence fight ended up being a bad idea. There is no reason to fight at welterweight. Make a fight with Taylor at 140. Maybe the potential Pacquiao fight is the reason he wants to stay at welterweight though. I know that I’m in the minority but I think he beats Pacquiao

Vargas will have a decent height advantage over Mikey. 7 mil for essentially a tune up is damn good. I think it'll be a better fight than most will expect but Garcia should win a pretty clear decision.

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Originally Posted by powerpuncher

I think that Garcia is really good. The Spence fight ended up being a bad idea. There is no reason to fight at welterweight. Make a fight with Taylor at 140. Maybe the potential Pacquiao fight is the reason he wants to stay at welterweight though. I know that I’m in the minority but I think he beats Pacquiao

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I do not know how you can say Garcia beats Manny after what PAC Man did to a young undefeated legitimate welterweight and Garcia's inept showing against Spence.

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Originally Posted by Master

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Originally Posted by powerpuncher

I think that Garcia is really good. The Spence fight ended up being a bad idea. There is no reason to fight at welterweight. Make a fight with Taylor at 140. Maybe the potential Pacquiao fight is the reason he wants to stay at welterweight though. I know that I’m in the minority but I think he beats Pacquiao

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I do not know how you can say Garcia beats Manny after what PAC Man did to a young undefeated legitimate welterweight and Garcia's inept showing against Spence.

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Pacquiao is a big enough star still to be able to pick and choose his fights. There is a reason he didn’t pick Spence or Crawford and went after Thurman. Thurman isn’t what he was and it was a good style match up for him. I’m not just saying this now. I said this when the fight was made. Mikey underestimates Spence and just got boxed by the bigger and longer fighter. Pacquiao doesn’t have a size advantage on Mikey and I think Mikey can use his boxing and countering skills to make Pacquiao hesitant. People forget that Mikey is very very good.

Pacquiao has just one fight left with uncle Al. Mikey is staying at 147 because Eddie/Dazn obviously think they'll poach Pac. The Saudi mob were interested in getting Pac... him and Mikey would be massive.

And from Pac's perspective a fight with Mikey looks far less daunting than a Spence or Crawford... regardless of whether he wins or not.

On paper a quality style clash. Vargas will be up front. But I just think Mikey at 147 is only maneuvering for a bigger end and a bad long term move. But hey he's getting paid big bucks. Danny Garcia v Mikey would be fun.

The Pac angle makes sense, otherwise I'd agree Mikey should have learned a hard lesson from the Spence fight and moved down. This fight in itself is a decent gauge of whether he can be more effective at the weight I guess.

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Originally Posted by Fenster

Pacquiao has just one fight left with uncle Al. Mikey is staying at 147 because Eddie/Dazn obviously think they'll poach Pac. The Saudi mob were interested in getting Pac... him and Mikey would be massive.

And from Pac's perspective a fight with Mikey looks far less daunting than a Spence or Crawford... regardless of whether he wins or not.

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I'll be the 1st to say that I'd favor Pac, if a Mikey fight is made in the near future. Depending on how Mikey looks against Vargas obviously. And I'm a big Mikey fan.

gassiev could return on this card

Garcia Vargas, Yafai Gonzalez, Martinez Harris. It is a great card

wbc has blessed mikey-jessie with the diamond belt