By Keith Idec

Mikey Garcia wasn’t at all dismissive of Adrien Broner.

The unbeaten WBC lightweight champion recognizes that beating Broner on July 29 won’t be easy. Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs) still made it perfectly clear during a conference call Thursday that he welcomed a move up to 140 pounds to box Broner because he is certain the former four-division champion is incapable of beating him.

Their 12-round fight, which likely will take place at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, was officially announced Thursday morning.

“He loses,” Garcia said. “He’s lost. I don’t lose. And that’s where I have that confidence. I don’t believe anybody around my division can beat me right now and I don’t think Adrien Broner is gonna be the one to give me those kinds of problems. We’re gonna obviously train hard and prepare ourselves. We can’t take him lightly, but I still believe very, very strongly that I’m the better fighter.”

The former featherweight and super featherweight champion has looked tremendous in his two fights since ending a 30-month layoff last summer.

In his last fight, the Oxnard, California, native won the WBC lightweight title by knocking out Montenegro’s Dejan Zlaticanin (22-1, 15 KOs) in the third round January 28 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. In his first fight following his long layoff, the 29-year-old Garcia defeated Elio Rojas (24-3, 14 KOs) by fifth-round technical knockout July 30 at Barclays Center.

As for the 27-year-old Broner (33-2, 24 KOs), he defeated Chicago’s Adrian Granados (18-5-2, 12 KOs) by split decision in his last fight, a 10-rounder February 18 at Xavier University’s Cintas Center in Broner’s hometown of Cincinnati. Broner’s narrow win over Granados aside, Garcia expects an opponent who has fought at higher weights than him to truly test him.

“Look, it’s gonna be a good, competitive fight, a very close fight because, like I said, you can’t deny the skills, you can’t deny his accomplishments,” Garcia said. “But in the end, at the end of the night, I feel like I’m a slightly better boxer, just a little bit better than he is. And I’ve just gotta prove it on the 29th.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.