By Keith Idec
Dejan Zlaticanin didn’t hesitate to make a bold prediction Thursday.
The WBC world lightweight champion predicted during a conference call that he’ll knock out unbeaten Mikey Garcia during their scheduled 12-round title fight January 28 in Las Vegas. Montenegro’s Zlaticanin (22-0, 15 KOs) is mostly unknown to American boxing fans, yet hardly short on confidence.
“It’s a 12-round fight,” Zlaticanin said, “but I will catch him and he will be knocked out.”
Garcia (35-0, 29 KOs) has won world titles at featherweight (126 pounds) and super featherweight (130), but facing Zlaticanin will be just the second fight for Garcia at lightweight (135).
Zlaticanin, meanwhile, has been a lightweight the entire 8½ years he has been a professional boxer. The powerful southpaw has beaten current WBA super world super lightweight champion Ricky Burns (41-5-1, 14 KOs) by split decision, Petr Petrov (38-4-2, 19 KOs) by unanimous decision and stopped then-unbeaten Ivan Redkach (19-2-1, 15 KOs) in the fourth round.
He wouldn’t say Thursday if Garcia is better than any of those three fighters.
“He’s the most famous fighter [I’ll fight],” said Zlaticanin, who’ll make his first title defense against Garcia. “That’s true. But I can’t talk about [Garcia’s ability] before I get in the ring with him, because I’ve fought big names like Ricky Burns and Petr Petrov. They are really good fighters – and Ivan Redkach. And I can’t talk if he’s dangerous or not, when I’m not in the ring with him. When we finish the fight, we can talk about it.”
The 29-year-old Garcia, a native of Oxnard, California, wasn’t at all surprised Zlaticanin predicted a knockout victory.
“That’s good because that shows his confidence and that shows that it will be a great fight,” Garcia said. “Like I said before, I don’t want a guy that’s gonna go in there and think of me. I want somebody that can push me to the next level, somebody that can really test me and Dejan is a perfect man to do that.”
Showtime will televise the Garcia-Zlaticanin fight as the opener of a doubleheader from MGM Grand Garden Arena.
The main event January 28 will be a rematch between Carl Frampton (23-0, 14 KOs) and Leo Santa Cruz (32-1-1, 18 KOs). Northern Ireland’s Frampton defeated Santa Cruz, of Rosemead, California, by majority decision July 30 in Brooklyn to win the WBA super world featherweight championship in one of the entertaining encounters of 2016.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
