After several busy weeks this weekend has just a solitary world title fight though it is a very intriguing one as WBO Featherweight champion Mikey Garcia (31-0, 26) defends his title for the first time. Garcia will be facing the ever popular Puerto Rican Juan Manuel Lopez (33-2, 30) who looks to re-establish himself in the world of boxing after almost dropping off the proverbial map when he appeared for super stardom.
Mexican-American Garcia is arguably the standout fighter from his brother Robert Garcia 's gym and despite the gyms reputation for having brawling swarmers Mikey is a very, very talented pure boxer with an amazing outside game. Mikey combines explosive power, very sharp punching, a wonderful understanding of range and amazing time to tag fighters with counters and shots as they come in.
On the inside Garcia has a lot of questions to answer however due to his excellent skill he's never been forced to answer those questions instead tying up his opponents and forcing the referee to split them before landing his hurtful straight shots. A technique similar to that employed by Wladimir Klitschko and just as effective (if not more so in fact). It's this outside of game Garcia that makes him so outstanding and so tough to get to, just ask the usually durable Orlando Salido who dropped at will be Garcia last time out.
Although Garcia has only been in 1 "world title bout" he has been mixing in and around the fringe of world class for quite a while. His victory over Orlando Salido last time out was clearly the best win on his record though victories over Jonathan Victor Barros, Bernabe Concepcion, Cornelius Lock have all been solid victories. In fact actually going through Garcia's record we see a record that looks genuinely solid with victories over Robinson Castellanos, Walter Estrada, Tomas Villa, Oliver Lontchi and Matt Remmillard all standing out to various degrees.
With power, skill, youth (he's just 25) and a fantastic boxing brain on his shoulders the future is incredibly bright for Garcia who could very easily claim a title at Super Featherweight, Lightweight and possibly (though it'd be pushing it) Light Welterweight before his career is over.
In Juan Manuel Lopez we have one of boxing's "must watch" fighters. He combines thunderous power, good looks, a fantastic heart and very good timing with questionable stamina and poor defense. He's fun to watch in both victories and defeats though unfortunately he's also a fighter who does seem to talk before realising quite what he's saying.
Lopez first burst on to the scene in 2008 when he swatted away Daniel Ponce De Leon for the WBO Super Bantamweight title in a jaw dropping 145 seconds to become a world champion. As a result of the victory over Ponce De Leon, Lopez had moved to a very impressive 22-0 (20) and at just 24 years old he was boxing's new star in the making.
The Puerto Rican had actually been very impressive in his bouts leading up to the Ponce De Leon fight and remained impressive following it as he defended the belt 5 times. Although he had blasted out his first 4 challengers he was given a torrid time by Rogers Mtagwa in the final defense before moving up to Featherweight.
In the Featherweight division Lopez impressed again as a weight up seemed to free him of the issues he was having in making the 122lb limit. He would quickly claim the WBO title there and defend it 3 times as fans bayed to see him face Cuban sensation Yuriorkis Gamboa. Sadly the fans never got their dream as Lopez was stopped by the aforementioned Orlando Salido in 2011.
Since the loss to Salido Lopez has never quite looked the same fight and despite winning 3 of 4 bouts (losing again to Salido in a rematch) he hasn't really recorded a win of note (Mike Oliver, whilst boasting an impressive record wasn't notable in the grand scale of things).
Against Salido we found a man who could take Lopez's power and walk through it whilst firing back and eventually grinding down Lopez. Both the Salido fights were wars and seem to have taken their toll on Lopez who at just 29 years old is a fighter who appears to be on the slide. His boxing, whilst once solid has taken a backwards step as he fell in love with his power and against a talented boxer/boxer--puncher or a hard nosed fighter Lopez can be made to look relatively poor.
Going in to this bout the only way I can imagine a win for Lopez is if he can plant a bomb on Garcia very early that catches the champion cold. If Lopez cannot tag Garcia very early then the result seems a forgone one. The talented Garcia will simply land his own powerful, straight snappy shots between the slower shots of Lopez and eventually force a stoppage (maybe even a clean KO).
Lopez has got bucket loads of heart so won't be stopped very early but will be stopped eventually when Garcia decides to just put his foot on the gas.
Prediction-Garcia TKO6
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