Dejan Zlaticanin Sees His Star-Making Moment in Bout with Mikey Garcia
Dejan Zlaticanin says he’s going to knock out Mikey Garcia when the two meet January 28 for the WBC Lightweight Championship. The bout is co-featured with Carl Frampton’s featherweight title rematch with Leo Santa Cruz at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Zlaticanin, who is unbeaten in 22 professional bouts and who captured a vacant 130-pound title in his last fight, issued his challenger a straight-up warning during a media conference call on Thursday to hype the fight.
"I don’t know if that’s respect or disrespect," Zlaticanin said in response to a question about whether he felt Garcia was overlooking him. "I want to get in the ring and to show everything, but that’s not good for him if he doubts my left hand because it will break off his head."
"He needs to win this fight first then to talk about that. But this is real life. This is not movies. You can’t go, you need to first to jump then to fly. It’s a 12-round fight and I think I will catch him with a good shot and he’ll be knocked out."
Those aren’t the words of a guy who is just happy to be performing on the big stage and will cede his title to a better-known fighter with big plans on the horizon.
Garcia was all the rage a couple of years back.
He won world titles at featherweight and super featherweight, defeated quality fighters like Juan Manuel Lopez, Orlando Salido and Rocky Martinez and seemed destined for pound-for-pound stardom.
And then—almost as fast as he burst on the scene—he was gone.
He returned more than than two years later with a smashing win over Elio Rojas and now will step in there with a streaking fighter who has big punching power and some serious determination to make himself an international star.
Zlaticanin is a huge name in his native Montenegro, but a win over Garcia—in what probably wouldn’t count as much of an upset—would be a star-making moment for the 32-year-old that could change his life.
"I like to fight the best. I don’t feel good when I win someone maybe he’s not the best or too good a fighter. I want to fight the best and to fight dangerous opponents and to test myself every time to be better and better," Zlaticanin said.
"People ask me because I’m first champion [from Montenegro], and they know that it’s something special. And after this fight I believe I won’t just be famous in my country, but I’ll be famous worldwide.”
And that’s what this fight is really about.
It’s something of a crossroads contest, though both fighters are unbeaten.
Garcia is the bigger name, but he has only one fight under his belt after a lengthy layoff, and he will be taking a massive step up in class and opposition level with the dangerous Zlaticanin.
Credit to him for jumping immediately into the deep end and not taking two or three (or six or seven, like sometimes happens in boxing these days) fights to gradually dip his toes back into the water.
His opponent's left hand is legit and could pump the brakes on his comeback in a hurry.
Zlaticanin is also stepping up in a big way.
There’s nothing simple about fighting Mikey Garcia.
He’s a smart, powerful puncher who is going all in to make up for lost time. You can’t undervalue what his name would mean on the resume of a fighter who has won some notable bouts but could use a huge name on his resume.
Zlaticanin believes his experience against quality opposition will lead him to a victory that will ensure both Garcia and boxing fans worldwide know exactly who he is and what he can do.
"He’s the most famous fighter, that’s true, but I can’t talk about that before I get in the ring with him because I fought big names like Ricky Burns, Petr Petrov are really good fighters. And [Ivan] Redkach. And we can talk about if he’s dangerous or not when I’m not in the ring with him," Zlaticanin said.
"Maybe he’s looking like that, but that would be a big mistake for him. He’s a big name here at USA, but I’m not. I’m champion, but people don’t know me here yet. But he’ll know me good after January 28."
All quotes obtained firsthand.
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