Mikey Garcia: ‘I don’t see Errol Spence as a big monster’

By Aragon Garcia

Boxingnews24.com

Mikey Garcia isn’t impressed with what he sees of IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr., and he sees nothing but void of the monster that boxing fans and the media has attempted to make him out to be. Garcia (39-0, 30 KOs) plans on sending Spence back to the contender level status by ripping his IBF belt from him on March 16 in their pay-per-view fight on FOX Sports at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Spence has been busy talking about wanting to fight WBA champion Keith Thurman, WBC champ Shawn Porter and WBA ‘regular’ champion Manny Pacquiao in unification fights. Garcia says Spence can fight all of them, but not as the IBF champion, because he’s going to be relieving him of his belt on March 16.

Garcia met with Spence recently during the filming of a one-on-one face off on FOX, and noticed he started out saying he was going to knock him out early, and then later he changed he was saying by including the word “if” he catches him. Garcia sees this inconsistency from Spence as an indication that he lacks confidence in himself, and he’s not certain anything that’s going to happen when they fight each other on March 16.

“They started building him up as a big welterweight monster that everyone is fearing, that everyone is avoiding. I just don’t see that,” Garcia said about Spence. “By winning this fight, I’m going to leave no doubt in the minds that I’m the best. There’s no one better. No one else is taking the chances I am. I know I have everything I need to win this fight,” Garcia said.

It’s quite understandable why the four division world champion Garcia doesn’t see Spence as a “monster” like some others do. Mikey has seen how Spence fights, and how basic he looks when he’s attacking his opponents. There’s no flash involved. It’s just a situation where Spence plows ahead and looks to knockout his opponents by taking advantage of his size and power advantage over them. Spence has only fought one good welterweight during his career, and that was Kell Brook, who he was losing to before the British fighter suffered a fractured orbital bone in his right eye. No one knows what would have happened had the injury not occurred. The only thing you can say is Spence was losing the fight up until the injury occurred in the first half of the fight. That’s the only high quality fighter Spence has fought during his seven year pro career. Aside from Brook, these are the best fighters Spence has fought since turning pro:

– Carlo Ocampo

– Leonard Bundu

– Lamont Peterson

– Chris Algieri

– Samuel Vargas

– Alejandro Barrera

Spence’s resume is empty for the most part once you exclude Brook, who as this writer mentioned, was winning the fight until suffering an eye injury. Mikey has obviously spotted the lack of quality of Spence’s opposition, and noted how he’s looked in the fight that he’s had as a pro, and come to the conclusion that it’s just smoke and mirrors with Errol. Mikey says Spence fights like him, but that doesn’t make sense. The two are completely different in how they fight. Spence is basic in charging his opponents in looking to take them out with heavy body shots. Mikey fights in a much more complex manner, setting traps, boxing, and looking to catch his opposition with big single punch knockout blows. Spence is more similar to George Foreman than Garcia with the way he fights. While you can’t deny that Spence has been effect with his fighting style, but it’s not one that he can count on when he gets inside the ring with Garcia on March 16. Spence will have to come up with a Plan-B if his normal fighting style is ineffective against Mikey. The only fight where Spence showed that he had a Plan-B was against Lamont Peterson last year in January. Spence changed fighting styles during that match, because he was getting hit a lot when he tried to bang with Peterson on the inside. Spence moved to the outside, and he was effective from that point on.

“I can’t wait until March 16th, and I put in another great performance,” Spence said.

Some boxing fans think Spence is drunk on success, and doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into in facing a fighter like Mikey. If Spence doesn’t stay composed in this fight, he could get embarrassed by Mikey. The crowd is going to be on Garcia’s side, even though the bout is taking place in Spence’ home state of Texas. Spence is from Texas, but he’s only fought there a small number of times during his career. The majority of Spence’s fights have taken place in New York and Las Vegas. When don’t fight in your own state, you can’t say for sure whether the boxing fans will even know who you are when all of a sudden you return there, hoping a big crowd will show up to see you. Mikey pulled in a large crowd last year in fighting IBF light welterweight champion Sergey Lipinets in San Antonio, Texas.

“There’s no denying I’m a great champion,” Mikey said.

This is a step up for Mikey, of course. He’s not proven himself at 147 yet, so we can’t give Garcia credit for being a champion at welterweight. This uncharted territory for Garcia in going up to welterweight to take on Spence for his International Boxing Federation title. If Garcia wins on March 16, then he can say he’s a great champion for sure. At 126, 130 and 135, Mikey was clearly a great champion in those weight classes. Now we’re going to see if he can be great at 147. You’ve Garcia credit for just daring to be great by moving up two weight divisions to take on Spence. A lot of fighters afraid to get out of their comfort zone in moving up one weight class, let alone two like Garcia is doing.

“He mentioned he was going to knock me out, and it wasn’t going to go 12 rounds. And then later he me mentioned, ‘If I tag you, it could be a short night,’” Mikey said to esnewsreporting in recalling what was said to him by Spence when the two were briefly off camera during a meeting. “I said, ‘It’s funny; earlier you were saying, ‘it was going to be a short night, there’s no doubt.’ Now you’re saying, ‘if.’ You’re changing your word. You’re choosing different words, and he said, ‘It could be a short night if I tag you. It could be a short night.’ IF, you know? Before you were saying it was going to be a short night, and now you’re saying IF you tag me it could be a short night. He then said he has plans of unifying the division against Thurman and Porter and Pacquiao. They asked me what I thought about that. ‘It’ good. He can still fight them, but he just go there as a champion. You can still fight them, but you won’t walk in there as a champion. After I beat him, he can still fight Thurman afterward,’” Garcia said.

Spence seems to be overlooking Mikey, thinking he’s got the win in the bag because of his big size advantage, and because of him coming up two weight divisions to fight him. The size advantage that Spence is going to have won’t be enough for him to count on in this fight. If it was a 30 to 40 pound weight advantage, then would probably be too much for Mikey to handle, but this is only going to be 10 to 15 pounds, and that’s it.

“I’m prepared to do anything it takes to win this fight,” Garcia said.

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