For the first time in his career, Mikey Garcia is a major underdog in the lead-up to a fight.
On March 16th at AT&T Stadium in Texas, Garcia will move up by two weight division to challenge IBF welterweight champion Errol Spence, who like Garcia is regarded as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world.
Garcia, who holds the WBC lightweight title and captured belts in four divisions, has never fought above the junior welterweight limit.
Garcia taking proper steps in his camp to put on the right kind of weight, to avoid losing any speed.
While Spence is the bigger man, and likely stronger, Garcia believes that he's got other attributes that will overcome the better favorite.
"The key to my strength training was that we didn't want to lose my speed and explosiveness. I can see now that I'm back in sparring that I still have that speed while also gaining the muscle we had to," Garcia said.
"If people say Errol is bigger, that's just obvious. But who's faster? Who has better timing? There's a lot more that goes into this sport and who's going to win this particular fight.
"This has been one of the toughest camps I've ever had. We're working on a lot of different methods and techniques to be at our very best. He's going to be bigger than me on fight night, but that's part of the challenge. I've know that since the beginning and that's why we've trained the way we have."
Garcia admits that after watched Spence dominate and stop Lamont Peterson - he immediately put Spence on his target list.
"When I saw him fight Lamont Peterson I decided that Errol Spence Jr. was the fight I wanted one day. People tried to talk me out of it, but now they're all on board. People have now started to see what I'm going to be capable of on March 16," Garcia said.
