By Ryan Burton

On July 28th, WBC lightweight champion Mikey Garcia (38-0) will face IBF lightweight champion Robert Easter Jr. (21-0) in a unification bout. 

The action takes place at the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles and Showtime will televise the fight.

The fight will be Garcia's first fight close to his hometown in Southern California in over 7 years.  His brother and trainer Robert Garcia said that he is planning on putting on a great performance for his local fans.

"It is going to be an explosive fight. We are training Mikey to go out there and give the fans out in Southern California a great fight. Mikey hasn't done that if I am not mistaken since 2011 when he last fought in Southern California. This is the homecoming for Mikey and hopefully people show up to support because they are going to see an explosive fight," said Garcia.

This will be the second fight of the year for Garcia who defeated Sergey Lipinets via unanimous decision in March to capture the IBF super lightweight title.  After the fight Garcia vacated the title in favor of unifying titles at 135 pounds.

The ambitious four-division champion doesn't plan on stopping there. He is hoping to get into the ring a total of three times in 2018.

Winning a title at 140 against Lipinets and unifying titles at 135 combined with a victory against whoever he fights later in the year would put Mikey in the running for Fighter of the Year but his brother refuses to look too far ahead into what could be the banner year of the younger Garcia's career.

"Right now we are focused on Robert Easter. Hopefully we can get another fight in before the end of the year but right now we are focused on him performing against Easter and then we can look to the next fight," Garcia stated.

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