By Cliff Rold
Mikey Garcia’s brutal knockout win of Dejan Zlaticanin was the sort of win that gets people excited. The win also put Garcia in the thick of an interesting lightweight division. It returned Garcia to the title ranks. Now holding a major belt (WBC) in his third weight class, one fight removed from a two-year layoff, Garcia’s star is shining.
The WBC has already weighed in on the future, positing a showdown between Garcia and WBA titlist Jorge Linares (41-3, 27 KO). Linares, a former WBC titlist who the WBC has positioned to challenge for that belt again, first has to handle a rematch with Anthony Crolla.
Garcia-Linares would be a fine fight. It might not be the finish line for either in the current lightweight field. Linares could easily elect to keep the WBA title without pursuing a reclaiming of the WBC crown. Even if he wanted the fight, promotional considerations could keep the two apart.
Garcia fights under the PBC banner. Linares is promoted by Golden Boy. Despite animus, those entities have shown they can work together. It doesn’t mean it’s easy.
For Garcia (36-0, 30 KO), another fight could quietly be emerging at 135 lbs. that, so far, doesn’t seem to fire up the imagination or the social media chatter. It will change if Robert Easter (18-0, 14 KO) keeps winning.
He’ll have his next chance to do just that Friday night (Bounce TV, 9 PM EST/6 PM PST).
Easter comes home this week to Toledo, Ohio, to make his first defense of the IBF lightweight belt against Luis Cruz (22-4-1, 16 KO). Cruz is the sort of opponent many a young titlist snares their first successful defense against. He tends to go rounds but he’s unlikely to win many of them. Cruz enters having gone 3-4-1 in his last eight fights. Edner Cherry knocked him out three fights ago, his first stoppage defeat.
Easter impressed in his title win last September, a fantastic twelve round battle with Richard Commey that saw Easter come off the floor in the eighth to score the decision. 26 years old and entering what one assumes will be his physical prime, Easter has the sort of dimensions that could make any lightweight nervous. He’s 5’11, long limbed, quick, and can both box and punch.
After Commey, we also know he’s got guts to go with evident physical talent.
It doesn’t make him ready for Garcia right now.
It doesn’t mean he won’t be sooner than later.
After Cruz, Easter faces a mandatory challenge from tough out Denis Shafikov. That’s the sort of fight that will add valuable experience for Easter. Shafikov so far has only two losses, both of them in title fights against Miguel Vasquez and Rances Barthelemy. He’s a legitimate contender in the class coming off wins over Olympian Jamal Herring and a split decision against Commey in December.
Shafikov is a contender who can further allow the audience to evaluate how good Easter is and how good he can be. If Easter can’t win, then Shafikov will earn his plaudits. If Easter can, then as 2017 rolls along we may begin to hear the question.
“I wonder what would happen if Easter fought Mikey?”
That’s typically how it works. Two guys win and keep winning, doing so in fights that entertain the masses, and eventually a showdown can blossom. In this case, it’s the sort of fight that would be logical.
Easter, like Garcia, fights under the PBC banner. It would be a natural as the dominoes fall. The PBC is displaying real growth in their development of big fights in house, the sort of model that always worked for Don King and Bob Arum in a heyday when they spent few days together. It’s the fun sort of fight that lends itself to future projection.
With each round Easter picks up, each victory accumulated, he will become a better professional. By early 2018, Easter will be 27 and Garcia just 30. Easter will still have never faced anyone as rounded as Garcia. Garcia will never have seen the sort of size and range Easter could confront him with.
A lot can happen along the way.
Garcia has been open that lightweight is unlikely to be his last stop on the scale. Given his frame, Easter moving up in weight is probably more if than when. That does nothing to mitigate the possibilities of this becoming a thing. Today’s lightweight title fight can be tomorrow’s Jr. welterweight clash with a little extra lunch.
Fans spend a lot of time speculating about fights. It’s part of the fun. Too often, that speculation favors fights across promotional barriers at the expense of battles that might be easier to get to. It’s probably too soon to invest much thought into a Garcia-Easter showdown, but it’s not too soon to invest a little.
It’s a seed worth planting. Time will determine if, and how, it grows.
Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com
