By Miguel Rivera
The President of the World Boxing Council (WBC), Mauricio Sulaiman, believes Mexican-American Mikey Garcia will become the next top superstar in the sport.
Last Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Garcia became the WBC lightweight world champion with a spectacular third round knockout of previously undefeated Montenegrin Dejan Zlaticanin in a Showtime televised attraction.
"I my opinion, Garcia will be the next idol in the boxing world. He is a very strong, strong boxer. He has everything: boxing, stamina, punching ability and charisma, so I know he's going to have great success for years to come and we'll be talking about him in the same way that we talked about [Manny] Pacquiao and [Floyd] Mayweather," Sulaiman said.
Sulaiman wants to clear the up the big debate at 135-pounds - who is the real WBC lightweight champion?
The beltholder was Jorge Linares of Venezuela. He was made the WBC "champion in recess" after suffering a bad hand injury which made him unavailable to make a mandatory defense against Dejan, who eventually captured the vacant championship.
Linares, who now holds the WBA world title and the WBC Diamond title at 135, faces Anthony Crolla in a rematch on March 25 in Manchester. The first fight was close and had good action, but Linares was the better man.
Provided Linares wins the rematch, Sulaiman will look to have him face Garcia to set a single WBC champion at 135.
"That is the fight that must happen, Linares with Mikey, so that there is only one champion," Sulaiman said.
Garcia (36-0, 30 KOs) vs. Linares (41-3, 27 KOs) would be an interesting fight, because all three of Linares' defeats came at the hands of Mexican fighters - a nd all three of the defeats came by way of knockout.