Mikey Garcia Glad Fight Was Postponed, Doesn't Want Excuses

By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – Once the initial disappointment subsided, Mikey Garcia realized the one-month postponement of his fight against Sergey Lipinets was for the best.

The last thing Garcia would’ve wanted was to beat Lipinets, only have his win degraded due to Lipinets’ injury to his right hand. Lipinets essentially was sparring with one hand before their fight was postponed last week from February 10 to March 10.

Their 12-round fight for Lipinets’ IBF junior welterweight title, which will take place at The Alamodome in San Antonio, was one of nine main events Showtime promoted as part of the premium-cable network’s “2018 Boxing Upfront” event Wednesday in Manhattan.

“It would’ve taken away from the glory,” Garcia told BoxingScene.com. “It would’ve taken away from the victory. So I’m very happy that he’s not going into it with an injury. It wasn’t fractured, which was great. That makes things a lot better. I really wish him the best because we need to have him the best he can be in front of us on fight night. We don’t wanna have someone that’s injured and take that excuse or that as the reason to take a loss. We wanna make sure we have the best opponent possible.”

The postponement temporarily disrupted Garcia’s training camp in Southern California, but he quickly got back on track.

“It was a little bit of a bummer, once it was official,” Garcia said. “I had heard about it a day or two prior to the Wednesday that it was announced that the fight was off. There was a little uncertainty on what was going to happen, but we were able to get it back. There were no fractures, just a 30-day suspension for his hand to heal, and we were back on. We just took that one day off. We were back sparring on Friday.

“This past Monday I sparred again. We took these two days off because of this presser with Showtime. But we’re back sparring Friday again, so it’s not a big setback. We were ready to push forward in camp and go into big weeks of sparring. But it’s OK. These last couple days have helped take a little break, and now we’re ready to get back on it.”

The 30-year-old Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs), of Oxnard, California, will attempt to become a world champion in a fourth weight class against Kazakhstan’s Lipinets (13-0, 10 KOs).

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.