Mikey Garcia's Next Fight: Ranking the Best Potential Opponents
Mikey Garcia captured his third world championship in devastating fashion over Dejan Zlaticanin on Saturday night in the co-featured bout of a loaded Showtime Championship Boxing card in Las Vegas.
It wasn't just that he won—though that was impressive enough given it was just the second fight of his comeback after a long layoff—but how he literally knocked a much bigger man out cold with a crunching right hand.
It was a scary moment and might already have sewn up 2017's Knockout of the Year award.
Garcia, 29, was often mentioned among boxing's top young pound-for-pound stars before he lost two-and-a-half years of his career to a contract dispute with his then-promoter Top Rank. He resolved that over the summer and hasn't lost a step since making his in-ring return with two impressive stoppage victories.
Now the owner of the WBC Lightweight Championship, the Ventura, California, native now has a ridiculous amount of salivating fights that could await him in his own weight class and the divisions just above and below his new home of 135 pounds.
Let's take a look and rank the five best potential opponents for Garcia going forward. It's an impressive list.
5. Robert Easter Jr.
1 of 5
Robert Easter Jr. should probably steer clear of Garcia for a while yet.
However, he is included on this list because he captured the vacant IBF Lightweight Championship via split decision in a slugfest against Richard Commey in his last outing. It was an impressive showing and proved that much of the hype that accompanied his rise to boxing prominence wasn't of the empty sort.
The 26-year-old is a tremendously gifted and determined young fighter, and that makes him dangerous against anyone.
Easter survived a flash knockdown in Round 8 to recover and pound out a close decision over the rugged Commey that netted him the first world championship of his young career, and he did it in impressive fashion given the circumstances.
The fight was very much on the table heading into the last round.
Easter did everything but put Commey on the seat of his pants in that final stanza to secure the nod on the official scorecards. He showed an impressive closing instinct and urgency that you can't teach to a young fighter; they either have it or they don't.
He has it, and he said in his post-fight comments that he's eager to add more boxing gold to his collection.
"I want more straps. I want belts. This is huge for my city. It means a lot. It's bigger than me," Easter said, per Boxing Scene.
Garcia presents him with that opportunity, though it might be a bridge too far at this stage.
Still, it would be an intriguing fight.
4. Jorge Linares
2 of 5
There was a time when Jorge Linares seemed destined to fall into the dustbin of boxing's great "what if" fighters. He always had the talent to be a big star, but injuries and uneven performances have plagued his ability to get to—and stay at—the top.
But he's gotten his ship in order (for the most part) and has the type of exciting, all-action style that could combine with Garcia to provide fans with a spectacular fight for however long the boxing gods see fit to let it last.
Linares might be the most likely man on this list to land the shot at Garcia.
He's listed as "champion in recess" by the WBC—he was stripped of the title last February when a hand injury forced him out of a mandatory defense against Zlaticanin—which entitles him to a shot at the new champion.
Linares has since recovered from the injury and took a clear decision over Anthony Crolla last September to claim the WBA Lightweight Championship. The pair are set for a March rematch, and Garcia, who now is more than an interested spectator, has made no secret of his desire to unify against the winner.
"They [Linares and Crolla] have a rematch coming up and the first fight was a great one, and if I can get the winner and claim supremacy of the division, that would be amazing," Garcia said, per Tim Hobbs of Sky Sports.
Garcia recently reiterated that he's targeting Linares and unification—after beating Zlaticanin—in comments to Will Esco of Bad Left Hook, so this one has some definite legs.
3. Adrien Broner
3 of 5
You don't have to like Adrien Broner's in-ring or out-of-ring antics, but there is no doubt that The Problem from Cincinnati, Ohio, has successfully marketed himself into one of boxing's can't-miss attractions.
He faces the underrated and tough Adrian Granados—best known for pumping the brakes hard on Amir Imam's rise to the top with a stunning eighth-round knockout late in 2015—on February 18 in Cincinnati on Showtime.
Broner needs to be careful in that fight, though he's the favorite and expected to pull through.
Showtime boxing chief Stephen Espinoza floated the idea of a possible Garcia-Broner fight last year shortly after announcing a loaded slate of bouts for his network to close 2016 and begin the new year.
"If (Garcia is) at 140, you can sort of mix and match some of the names on this slate and I'd like to say somewhere in the future—an Adrien Broner-Mikey Garcia fight, maybe at 140," Espinoza said, per Mitch Abramson of The Ring.
Garcia, for the time being at least, seems content looking at unification fights at 135 pounds next, but he did entertain the possibility of moving up to 140 pounds by the end of the year, per Boxing Scene.
And there would be few bigger and more competitive fights awaiting him there than Broner, who, whatever you think of him, has the speed and power to give Garcia a stiff challenge.
.jpg?w=256 "Colts Jaguars Football")
2. Vasyl Lomachenko
4 of 5
Vasyl Lomachenko fights at 130 pounds—where Garcia captured a world title prior to his layoff—and might already be the best P4P fighter in the sport.
The Ukrainian is promoted by Bob Arum's Top Rank, and, while Garcia has not signed with a promoter, his last fight was handled by Richard Schaefer's Ringstar Sports.
Hopefully those two can work together, and a suitable weight can be agreed upon, because there are few fights that could be more significant or pit two more evenly matched operators against each other in a bout that could be a literal coin flip.
Imagine Lomachenko matching his technical brilliance against Garcia's speed and punching power? We've got to be careful not to drool on the keyboard here.
Garcia embraced the idea earlier in the year with the caveat that Lomachenko, a two-division champion and twice Olympic gold medalist for Ukraine, would need to be willing to move up in weight to make the mythical showdown a reality.
"Maybe at 135 pounds I can fight with Lomachenko when I am champion. If he wants to jump to 135, then I would like a fight with him," Garcia said, per Miguel Rivera of Boxing Scene.
"The win over Rocky [Martinez] was spectacular, I was impressed. We are fighters at a high level and you always want to face others at that level to see who is the best at 135."
We could wax poetic on this matchup all night long, but it's so good that it sells itself.
1. Terence Crawford
5 of 5
This has the potential to be the best fight in the entire sport—Terence Crawford vs. Mikey Garcia at 140 pounds.
The fan in all of us should begin praying to the boxing gods in the hopes that this one becomes a reality sooner rather than later.
It'd be a much better matchup than Crawford continuing to chase Manny Pacquiao, who is on a world tour at the moment and uncertain to give him an in-ring opportunity to supplant him as Top Rank's golden boy.
It might be too much to mentally process if we get that text alert from Team Stream on our phones that Arum and Schaefer have let bygones be bygones and come together to give the fans a bout of this caliber matching fighters who could one day claim P4P supremacy.
Michael Woods of Ring TV got a chance to take the temperature of the Crawford camp about the possibility of this fight the day after Garcia iced Zlaticanin to become a three-division champion.
"We welcome Mikey's challenge, if he comes up to 140 pounds," said Crawford’s trainer/co-manager Brian McIntyre, per Woods. "We will do him like we did him in the amateurs."
Woods inquired as to what that was, and McIntyre didn't pull any punches: "Terence beat the s--t out of him."
Be that as it may, we'd sure like to see what happens if the two meet as pros. Now let's all get to praying.
.jpg?w=480 "Colts Jaguars Football")
