Mikey Garcia says he’s willing to fight Yuriorkis Gamboa

By Rob Smith - 01/15/2014 - Comments

WBO super featherweight champion Mikey Garcia (33-0, 28 KO’s) says he’s willing to fight WBA interim lightweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa (23-0, 16 KO’s) in the near future. Garcia wants Gamboa’s promoter 50 Cent to contact his promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank to make the fight happen. HBO would definitely like to put that fight on their network, because they expressed interest in that fight in the past.

Instead of getting that fight, HBO will be televising Mikey vs. Juan Carlos Burgos (30-1-2, 20 KO’s) this month on January 25th at Madison Square Garden in New York. Burgos is coming off of two straight 12 round draws against recent Mikey victim Roman Martinez and Yakubu Amidu.

It’s kind of surprising that HBO actually said yes to the Garcia-Burgos fight because it’s more of a lateral move from Mikey’s last fight against Roman Martinez than any kind of step up in competition. The Mikey-Martinez fight was a mismatch with Mikey stopping Martinez in the 8th round last November.

“Oh I don’t want to fight Gamboa,” Mikey said to Fightnews. “I am too scared to fight Gamboa. He’s a beast…If it was that easy to make the fight I would fight him. Let’s meet up if he wants to fight me…Get your promoter to talk to my promoter. I want that fight!”

It sounds good that Mikey is talking about a Gamboa match-up, but he’s not the one that makes his fights. Top Rank is his promoter and matchmaker, and they’ve shown no interest in putting Mikey in with the Cuban Gamboa for some reason. I don’t expect that to change in the future. Top Rank never matched Mikey against Guillermo Rigondeaux when they had the chance to make that fight, and Gamboa is probably another guy that they won’t put in with Mikey.

There’s no question that Mikey has good power, but can you imagine what Rigondeaux would have done with him had Top Rank promoter Bob Arum let the two of them fight. It would have been like watching Rigondeaux vs. Nontito Donaire part 2. Mikey would have been too one dimensional to beat Rigondeaux. I feel that’s the case with him against Gamboa as well. The Cuban fighter is just too fast and too skilled for Mikey, and I don’t think Arum will let Mikey get in the ring with. That’s a sign of respect for Gamboa that Arum won’t make that fight, but also a good signal that Arum likely won’t take any chances with Mikey until he gets his big money fight against Manny Pacquiao, which could very well happen this year in September.