MY FIRST TIME
THE PERFECT PUNCH
the amateur team and a cup. Not my cup, but he brought me a protective cup. I bought some Asics wrestling shoes and a $1.99 mouthguard that I had to go boil in the water to fit into my teeth, all a few minutes before I jump in the ring for my pro debut. The fight went well; I win a four-round unanimous decision. It was solid for my pro debut. The guy was a tough guy, Domingo Herrera, and it was a good experience as a fight. I was “My dad and mom show up and realize someone stole our vehicle with all my gear, maybe a little nervous. I was a little scared at first. The whole event leading up to that was crazy. When our truck was stolen and I had no gear, I thought maybe we can just postpone this. I made $900 for that fight, and it was mainly to recoup some of my expenses for what I had lost. I had an outfit that I had made that was $1,500 for the shorts and robe. Obviously that was gone, and the $900 didn’t even cover my outfit.” my shorts, my shoes, my cup, my mouthguard – everything stolen.”
Mikey Garcia describes one of the most memorable punches of his career:
“There’s one fight in particular that comes to mind right away: when I won my WBC lightweight title against Dejan Zlaticanin (January 28, 2017).
“The knockout punch was a right hand, right to the chin of my opponent, but the sequence that led to that punch was something. My brother, my dad and myself, we practiced at the gym throughout the entire training camp. We knew my opponent very well. We studied him. He was a little bit shorter in height than me. We knew his style would be to come forward, be the aggressor. We had a plan to catch him with my right uppercut, sidestep to my left, and whenever he would look at me to [locate] me, that’s when I would follow up with an overhand right. And we practiced that sequence daily at the gym. “When that opportunity presented itself on fight night, I saw that in slow motion. I was able to connect my right uppercut, spin to my left, kind of push him with my left, because he was a southpaw. As I pivoted when he turned around to look for me, the overhand right was already on top of him, and that gave me the knockout victory. But it’s crazy how that sequence became a slow-motion moment, because I practiced it so much, and it was perfect. I connected perfectly. He was out before he hit the canvas. Fortunately, he was OK. He was able to recover a few moments after, but that gave me the victory. “I had other good knockout victories in my career, but that was the only time everything slowed down. That’s why you work out so hard – and so many weeks. [That bout was] only the second fight after a long layoff, and I was competing in a third weight class. There were a lot of boxing analysts who doubted I could come back at a third weight class, and [they thought that] after a layoff, maybe I wasn’t going to be the same. Anyway, I was able to come back and win with such a clear knockout victory, perfect punch, it just added to the value of that fight. Then winning the WBC lightweight title – a title some of boxing’s greatest have held, and my dad had always longed for a WBC championship. He had Fernando [Vargas], and Robert, my brother, world champions, but neither held the WBC title. And I got to do that and bring it home with us – makes that victory that much more special.”
Eleven years after his inauspicious pro debut, Garcia outpointed Adrien Broner.
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