By Ryan Burton
BoxingScene.com caught up with undefeated featherweight contender Mikey Garcia shortly after his 8th round knockout victory over former champion Jonathan Barros. Garcia caught Barros with a vicious left hook that the Argentine was unable to recover from. Garcia said that his brother (and co-trainer) Robert Garcia wanted him to throw the hook more.
"My brother was asking me to throw the left hook and also the right hook. Then there in the 8th round it landed perfectly. That punch hurt him. He's fought a lot of top guys but he had never been hurt," Garcia stated.
Barros struggled to get to his feet after hitting the canvas for the first time in his career. Garcia said that he knew his opponent was in trouble when the hook connected.
"When I first dropped him I knew he was going to have a hard time. I was waiting to see if he could recover. He tried to get up and finally did but he was telling the referee that he was unable to continue," Garcia explained.
Next up for the Oxnard, CA native is WBO featherweight champion Orlando Salido. The fight will take place in either January or February. Garcia knows that Salido will be his most experienced and toughest opponent to date. He plans to begin studying him soon.
"We are going to work on Salido now. I need to study more of his fights. He's a very tough, very experienced fighter. He's fought the best guys in the division. We know its not going to be an easy fight. He's going to be right there in front of me and he's going to be aggressive and come right at me and we need to be ready for that," Garcia told BoxingScene.com.
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