By Jake Donovan
Upon the initial announcement of the March 16 showdown between pound-for-pound entrants Errol Spence and Mikey Garcia, the most common criticism of the pairing was the size difference.
Garcia (39-0, 30KOs) comes in as a four-division titlist but moves up two weight classes to challenge for Spence’s welterweight title live on Fox Pay-Per-View from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. The unbeaten boxer from Oxnard, Calif. comes in on the heels of a 12-round win over Robert Easter Jr. in their lightweight title unification clash last July.
As evidenced in their first face-to-face last November at Fox Studios in Los Angeles, Garcia gives away quite a bit in height, reach and natural size. However, what he brings to the table well beyond the tale of the tape is enough to have the defending welterweight title tune out any claims of being on his favorable end of an unfair fight.
“Overall, he’s very fundamentally sound,” Spence (24-0, 21KOs) said of Garcia during a press conference in Los Angeles to promote their fight, which marks the third defense of his welterweight title. “He’s coming to win. He says he sees something in me that he can exploit and I’m looking forward to it on March 16.
“He’s been saying in interviews he’s going to knock me out. Hopefully he brings that same energy into the ring.”
Securing a major event of a fight has proven to be the toughest challenge in Spence’s young career. The 29-year old southpaw from the greater Dallas area became the second member of the 2012 U.S. Olympic male boxing team to win a major title in the pro ranks, doing it the hard way in traveling to England to dethrone Kell Brook in the 11th round of their May ’17 title fight.
Just two fights have followed, both coming in 2018 and against opponents he had to settle for more so than desired.
The welterweight division remains chock-full of talent, especially within Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) organization which Spence proudly represents. To date, he’s been unable to entice the likes of Keith Thurman, Shawn Porter or Danny Garcia in the ring, biding his time for bigger fights with stoppage wins over Lamont Peterson and Carlos Ocampo in a two-fight 2018 campaign that functionally ended in June.
Efforts to get him in the ring for a third time on the year were scrapped when the PBC staff pushed back its 4th quarter plans in order to put together a blockbuster schedule in announcing lucrative long-term deals with Showtime and Fox Sports.
The centerpiece of Fox Sports’ initial rollout was this forthcoming PPV event.
“The most dangerous thing I see about him is that he’s fundamentally sound,” Spence (24-0, 21KOs) said of his unbeaten challenger. “He can switch gears. But the thing I respect most about him is his willingness to become great.
“He called me out and it was an easy fight to make. There was a little back and forth, some minor disagreements but it was an easy fight to make.”
It will be up to Spence to make it an easy fight, although refusing to pinning his chances to the standalone belief that size matters.
"He’s great boxer with a high ring IQ," Spence notes. "I’m prepared and ready to show the world that I have defense and a lot more skills than people want to believe."
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
