Mikey Garcia Wants Lightweight Title Bout With Flanagan Next

by David P. Greisman

It was two and a half years between Mikey Garcia’s last fight and his fifth-round technical knockout of Elio Rojas this past Saturday. Now he doesn’t want to wait long to build on that victory.

“I would love to come down to lightweight and fight for a world title in my next fight, if possible,” Garcia said at the post-fight press conference. “I’m ready for just about anybody, you know. If I can get a world title fight in my next fight, I would definitely, definitely welcome that opportunity. In the end it’s still up to the promoters, managers, handlers, butt one name that comes to mind is WBO lightweight champion Terry Flanagan. I would really love that belt. The reason for that is because I held the WBO at featherweight and super featherweight. I would like to add the lightweight to my collection.”

Flanagan, a 27-year-old from the United Kingdom, won his world title a little more than a year ago, picking up the vacant belt with a stoppage of Jose Zepeda. He’s defended it twice since, taking out Diego Magdaleno in two, outpointing Derry Matthews and then winning a decision over the ancient Mzonke Fana. He is now 31-0 with 12 KOs.

There are other titleholders at lightweight. One whose name was mentioned to Garcia at the press conference was WBC titleholder Dejan Zlaticanin.

“If that’s a match that’s presented to me, and that’s the name I got to go through, I’m ready to fight anybody,” Garcia said. “At this point I don’t want to duck anybody. I don’t want to pretend that I’m taking easy ways out. I don’t want anybody to misinterpret. If fights don’t happen, it’s for other reasons, maybe networks or promotional people … sometimes prevent things from happening.”

Garcia came in at 138 pounds for the Rojas fight. He was closer to (and otherwise within) the junior welterweight limit than he was to the lightweight limit. Lightweight remains his destination, though.

“At first I want to make my stand at 135 pounds,” Garcia said. “As this fight was schedule at 140 pounds, I came down to 138 because I wanted to feel my body and see how comfortable I felt moving down, with the intention of coming down to 135. I really don’t want to skip the lightweight division. I want to first win a title there and if we can unify titles if that’s available, then do that. If not, then for sure we’ll welcome the opportunity at 140 pounds. I think I can compete with anybody in the 135 and 140 divisions.”

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