A three-division world champion at the age of 23, and one of the youngest four-division world champions in boxing history, Broner remains one of the most accomplished and popular athletes – and perhaps the most polarizing – in the sport today.
Broner (33-2, 24 KOs) is unbeaten at or below 140 pounds with his only two losses coming against welterweight world champions Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter.
The 29-year-old Mikey Garcia is undefeated (36-0, 30 KOs) and coming off a WBC lightweight world title he won in January.
Garcia is moving up in weight for the second time in just three fights to challenge Broner.
Here is what Garcia had to say on facing Broner:
“I just think I’m a skilled fighter with very good power as well and I think it’s a pretty even fight, pretty even match. But, I feel that I have a slight edge when I comes to just natural boxing skills, technique, the ring generalship; the timing and the distance-range where I control the range of the distance of a fight.”
“I haven’t fought anybody else that’s been champion in four divisions. So, that’s going to be an accomplishment in itself there and that’s what I mean. There’s no one else available that has that resume.
“I think it’ll be a new to see Broner at 140 because that’s probably a better weight for him and that will actually allow me to perform better too. But, I don’t see myself as having an advantage because the fight is at 140. I feel that I should still be at 135 and I still plan on coming down to 135 pounds but we’ll just have to see on the 29th and see how I feel there.
“I still hope we can get something like that before the end of the year but it just wasn’t happening this summer. Linares’ team said that they would like maybe a voluntary title defense of his titles just like the WBC had already agreed that it was okay for either one of us to take a voluntary title defense. With Flanagan, I heard it was a very good possibility to get done but I think he’s also got a fight with Verdejo, possibly as a mandatory and that’s something that we would have to wait for results for. So, it was a little more complicated to be waiting and to try to get those unification matches. But the Adrien Broner fight came up and it was a lot easier to get that than anything else.”
On taking his power up the weight classes, Garcia added: “I think the power is still there. It just depends on how well my opponent can take a punch.
“I am fighting a bigger guy with Adrien Broner, who has fought at welterweight and faced some of the better welterweights there, so the power may not show because he might be able to take a better punch. But, I moved up from featherweight all the way to lightweight and I still carried punch. My last victory as everybody knows, I knocked out Dejan Zlaticanin who had never been dropped and who was undefeated. I dropped him cold. The power is there it just depends on how well a guy can take a punch.
“On paper he has the biggest resume, he’s the most accomplished fighter that I’ve faced. But as far as the better boxer, I’m just going to have to wait and see on the 29th and see how good of a fighter he really is because he’s definitely got the talent and the skills. Let me see what I can do on July 29th.
“It’s going to be a good, competitive fight, a very close fight because like I said, you can’t deny his skills, you can’t deny his accomplishments. But at the end of the night I feel that I am a slightly better boxer. Just a little bit better than he is and I’ve just got to prove it on the 29th.
“I did tell you that he loses, he’s lost and I don’t lose. That’s where I have that confidence. I don’t believe anybody around my division can beat me right now and I don’t think Adrien Broner is going to be one to give me those kinds of problems. We’re going to obviously train hard and prepare. We can’t take him lightly but I still believe very, very strongly that I’m the better fighter.”
