By Keith Idec
Sergey Lipinets wasn’t the only opponent Mike Garcia considered remaining at 140 pounds to fight next.
The undefeated three-division champion also thought about boxing Omar Figueroa in a junior welterweight bout. The undefeated Figueroa is a fan-friendly, all-action fighter coming off an impressive third-round knockout of Robert Guerrero, but ultimately didn’t offer Garcia the opportunity Lipinets does to become a world champion in a fourth weight class.
Kazakhstan’s Lipinets (13-0, 10 KOs) will make the first defense of his IBF junior welterweight title against Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs) on February 10 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas (Showtime).
“Once we couldn’t make the fights at lightweight with Jorge Linares or Robert Easter, the next option for me was 140 pounds,” Garcia told BoxingScene.com recently.
“We looked at Omar Figueroa, but that doesn’t do much for me because it’s not a title fight, not a high-profile fight like the Adrien Broner fight was. So we looked at what else was available. Sergey Lipinets was available and willing to get in the ring with me.”
The 30-year-old Garcia, a native of Oxnard, California, moved up from 135 pounds to 140 for his last fight. The WBC lightweight champion beat Broner (33-3, 24 KOs, 1 NC), a four-division champion from Cincinnati, pretty easily over the course of 12 rounds July 29 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Broner, who has fought as high as the welterweight limit of 147 pounds, would’ve had to pay Garcia a $500,000 penalty if he came in overweight the day before they fought.
Garcia had similar concerns about Figueroa failing to make the 140-pound limit if he had agreed to battle the Weslaco, Texas, native. The 28-year-old Figueroa (27-0-1, 19 KOs) has competed as high as junior middleweight during his nine-year pro career.
“He just fought at 147 [against Guerrero on July 15],” Garcia said. “He says he could do 140, but there’s always concern that he might not be able to do that. So that’s also one of the reasons we were worried about a Figueroa fight.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.