Mikey Garcia vacates IBF 140lb title

Boxingnews24.com

By Dan Ambrose

After recently saying he would keep his IBF light welterweight title, Mikey Garcia (38-0, 30 KOs) has suddenly changed his mind and has chosen instead to vacate the belt and move back down to lightweight to defend his WBC 135 lb. title, according to Dan Rafael.

Mikey had to make up his mind which of the two titles he was going to keep – the WBC lightweight or IBF light welterweight – and he decided to go with the lower weight belt. He couldn’t keep both, as WBC wasn’t going to let him hold onto two division titles.

The last time Mikey fought at lightweight was in his 3rd round knockout win over Dejan Zlaticanin on January 28, 2017. Mikey won the WBC 135 lb. title with victory. However, he opted to freeze his WBC title without defending it for 15 months while he went up to light welterweight for fights against Adrien Broner and IBF 140lb. champion Sergey Lipinets.

The World Boxing Council was patient with Mikey, allowing him to not defend his WBC 135lb. title for close to a year and a half. It was good for Mikey that the WBC allowed him not to sit on the belt without defending it for well over a year, but it obviously was a negative for the many contenders in the division. They’ve been waiting on Mikey for ages without him defending the title, but it looks like they’re going to have to continue to wait for a while longer.

Now that Mikey is moving back down to lightweight, he’ll likely either face the winner the May 12th fight between Vasyl Lomachenko and Jorge Linares or he’ll face IBF lightweight champion Robert Easter Jr. in a unification fight. There’s also a possibility that Mikey could opt to defend his WBC title against the loser of the Lomachenko-Linares bout.

You’ve got to feel sorry for the contenders in the WBC’s top 15 at lightweight, because by the time the smoke clears from all the fights that Mikey wants to take, two years will have likely passed by since he won the WBC lightweight crown against Zlaticanin.

It’s not that surprising to me that Garcia, 30, has opted to vacate his IBF light welterweight title, because he had a lot of problems winning the title last March in his fight against Sergey Lipinets in San Antonio, Texas. While the scores were wide in favor of Garcia, the fight was closer and one that was hardly the landslide that the judges scored it.

Garcia’s face was badly marked up by the heavy blows from Lipinets, and he looked more like the loser than the winner of the fight. In contrast, Lipinets looked unmarked and appeared to have taken a light stroll. What was noticeable about the fight was how Garcia’s power didn’t carry up to the division the way it had when he had moved from featherweight to super featherweight and then to lightweight.

Had Mikey stayed at 140, he would have been under intense pressure to face the likes of Regis Prograis, Kiryl Relikh and Jose Ramirez. Those guys are all heavy-handed fighters like Lipinets. Mikey would have been hard-pressed to beat all those fighters, and I don’t think he could have. But the immediate responsibility for Mikey, had he stayed at 140, would have been for him to defend against his International Boxing light welterweight mandatory challenger Ivan Baranchyk (18-0, 12 KOs).

That’s another hard puncher in the Lipinets mold, but younger at 25 and more than a handful for an aging small guy like Garcia. Mikey had until April 22 to negotiate a fight with Baranchyk otherwise a purse bid was going to be ordered. Some boxing fans are now going to say that Mikey didn’t want any of that work with Baranchyk. That would have been a very, very hard fight for Mikey, and there’s no telling whether he’d win or not. Even if Mikey did beat Baranchyk, it would be one of the fights where he would have taken ton of punishment in a grueling fight. I don’t know that Mikey wanted to go through another experience like he had with Lipinets.

“The IBF received an email from Mikey Garcia on Sunday indicating that he was relinquishing the IBF junior welterweight title,” IBF president Daryl Peoples said to ESPN.“We were a little surprised as well.”

Mikey captured his 4th division world title in facing Lipinets on March 10. That was a personal goal for Mikey to win a fourth title in four divisions, but he received criticism from the boxing public for cherry-picking a vulnerable champion at 140 to win the belt. Instead of Mikey going after the arguably tougher champion in Jose Ramirez, he went after the flawed IBF light welterweight belt holder Lipinets. Even with Mikey picking the weak leak among the champions at 140, he still had a major problem in beating Lipinets. Mikey has won titles at 126, 130, 135 and 140.

If Mikey chooses to face Easter Jr. (21-0, 14 KOs) next, then the WBC will likely bless the fight because it’s a unification match. But sooner or later, the sanctioning WBC is going to need to order Mikey to defend against his No.1 contender. It would be a shape if Mikey sits on his WBC title without defending it against his mandatory challenger for 5 years like WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson, whose last defense against his mandatory came in November 2013.

Mikey had the chance to fight Jorge Linares last year, but he instead made the decision to move up to light welterweight to fight Broner and Lipinets.

With Mikey moving back down to lightweight, I think it’s safe to say that he won’t be challenging for a world title at welterweight like he’d been talking about wanting to do. Mikey probably took a good look at his fight with Lipinets and realized that he would have no chance whatsoever against the likes of Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman and Terence Crawford.

Mikey revealed this week that he walks around at 152 lbs., which would make some boxing fans believe he’s a weight bully. He’s very big for the lightweight division, but I guess that’s the whole idea. Being heavier than his opponents gives Mikey an advantage.