Four-division world boxing champion Mikey Garcia’s first foray to the welterweight division came in 2019 when he jumped up from lightweight to take on the man considered the most feared in the division Errol Spence Jr..
Although Mikey ultimately lost the fight by unanimous decision he felt he proved the doubters wrong when they predicted he was too small for Spence and would likely get knocked out. Mikey took all of the best punches from Spence and never dropped.
Instead of going back down to 140 or 135 pounds, Mikey decided to stay at welterweight and took on Jessie Vargas on February 29 at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, Texas and was able to hurt and drop the much bigger Vargas on way to a unanimous decision victory.
Leading up to the fight both Mikey Garcia and Jessie Vargas were telling media should they win they would want to face Filipino ring legend Manny “Pac-Man” Pacquiao next.
Vargas who fought Pacquiao in 2016 lost his WBO welterweight world title to the fighting Senator, and Mikey who sparred Pacquiao as a teen wants to challenge himself against an all-time-great and claim the WBA world title that Pacquiao holds to make him a five-division world champion.
Mikey’s trainer and brother Robert Garcia gave his thoughts on the possible match-up in an interview with ESNEWS.
“I think he (Mikey) can perform well against the welterweights and Pacquiao’s perfect because Pacquiao’s not much bigger,” Garcia told ESNEWS. “I don’t even think he is taller than Mikey or they might be the same and I don’t think he is going to gain 15 pounds, 20 pounds after the weight-in. Mikey just gained 5 pounds, Mikey was 146 and he came in at 151 before the fight.
Even though Garcia like the idea of matching his brother up with Pacquiao, he still believes the 41-year-old champion is dangerous and that Mikey needs to fix some things he did wrong in the Vargas fight before taking on the legendary southpaw.
“I think it’s a great match-up. Do I think we could win? I think we could win. It’s not going to be easy either, Pacquiao’s a legend but also at 41 he dominated Keith Thurman the way he did. It’s a close fight, it’s not easy either. It’s very, very dangerous for Mikey because Manny is very fast and very strong and this fight (with Jessie Vargas) watching the fight again there are little things I still see little things that Mikey needs to improve and if we improve them I think we got a really good shot at beating Manny. But Manny’s dangerous, Manny is the real deal.”
Manny Pacquiao will likely fight in July, and said Mikey Garcia and Errol Spence Jr. were the two guys on top of his list of opponents.
If Pacquiao picks Mikey the fight could take place in Saudi Arabia.
