By Miguel Rivera
WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs) explained that a better economic offer to return on January 27th was what made him reject a proposal from Golden Boy Promotions to stage a unification with WBA champion Jorge Linares.
As BoxingScene.com reported last week, Garcia met with Golden Boy President Eric Gomez in an attempt to reach an agreement for the Linares fight.
The meeting went well, but Garcia received another offer for a Showtime televised fight that was even better than the 50-50 proposal from Golden Boy to face Linares.
Garcia is still very much interested in fighting Linares and plans to discuss it further after his January return. He hopes to speak with Gomez in the near future to work out the financial details for a Linares bout.
"[The deal] could not happen, but I was with Eric Gomez that we will be in contact to try to make the fight after this fight," said Garcia to ESPN Deportes.
"I have more options, in fact compared to what I [was offered for Linares], the guaranteed purse is better [for January 27] - although the fight with Linares - I would love to do very much, but we must take into account the business side of things... just as Golden Boy is looking to do what's best for their company, I am also looking to do what's best for me."
One of the opponents being kicked around to fight Garcia, as BoxingScene reported several weeks ago, is IBF lightweight champion Robert Easter.
Garcia started off 2017 with a vicious knockout of Dejan Zlaticanin to capture the WBC title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. He came back in July, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, with a dominating performance over former four division world champion Adrien Broner. The fight with Broner took place at the junior welterweight limit of 140-pounds.
