Mikey Garcia Has Been Bulking Up For His Fight With Errol Spence and Errol Spence is Not Impressed

If you're a boxing fan then you're probably eagerly awaiting March 16th.  Errol Spence Jr. versus Mikey Garcia.  The Boogeyman of the welterweight division against an incredibly skilled four division champ vying for a Money May matching fifth.  And because Garcia is moving up to welterweight (two weight classes above his preferred weight) he needs to pack on some extra muscle.  Moving up to challenge for a belt at welterweight is risky, choosing to do it against Errol Spence may prove to be downright insane.  Even welterweights don't want to fight him, and once he cleans out the division and moves up to light middleweight they won't want to fight him either/

For one thing, Spence is a giant welterweight.  Walking around, he's probably like 5'10 185ish.  He's got a long reach and according to those unfortunate to spar him he hits like a light heavyweight.  Spence is taking this fight because every time he calls Keith Thurman out, Thurman gets another injury, and because Bob Arum will never let him fight Terence Crawford.  Shawn Porter got tied up in a mandatory defense, so Mikey was by far the best money fight and from a skill standpoint Garcia is in an entirely different category than all of Spence's previous opponents.  The only problem is they were actually welterweights.

Don't get me wrong, I do think Mikey has a chance and he certainly does too as he's been claiming he "sees something" he can exploit in Spence's game.  He's way too good to be completely disregarded and Spence knows that too, which is exactly why I think he's in trouble.  I think he's expecting the bigger fighter to lean on his power against the smaller fighter and thinks Spence won't be able to make adjustments if he isn't landing the heavy shots he wants to.  The problem is Spence is extremely good at mixing up his combos and changing levels to punish the body.  He doesn't rely on any one punch too often in much the same way Mikey doesn't.  In my eyes, the two actually bear a great deal of similarity in their approaches.  Very fundamental, very versatile, not flashy, incredibly effective.  Both have power, both have excellent technique and defense, and both have extremely well respected teams in their corners.  I want Mikey to win because I love the fact that he's willing to move up and taking on a real challenge against arguably the best welterweight in the world.  With that said, I'm leaning towards Spence.  He's finished every fight early going back to the end of 2013, I see this one ending the same way.


And while some people might be impressed by the added bulk, Errol is not.  

Super fucking mean to call someone fat and sloppy for no reason.  Guy's just trying to cultivate a little mass.