Miguel Angel Garcia Cortez (born December 15, 1987), best known as Mikey Garcia, is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2006 to 2021. He held multiple world championships in four weight classes from featherweight to light welterweight, and challenged once for the IBF welterweight title.
Early life and education Born to Mexican parents, Miguel Angel's father, Eduardo, was an amateur boxer and trainer of world champion boxer Fernando Vargas at La Colonia Youth Boxing Club. His older brother, Roberto was a professional boxer and a former IBF Super Featherweight Champion who lost his belt to the late Diego Corrales. His oldest brother, Daniel, was a boxer and trainer. He has been featured on ABC's show American Latino TV and he talked about balancing studies with the demands of boxing.
Garcia has said he grew up in a "gang-related neighborhood" in Oxnard, California.In a video that was published to YouTube on July 22, 2016, the words "Oxnard, California" appear on the screen at the 0:55 mark of the video. In that video, Garcia said at the 0:57 mark of the video to the 1:09 mark of the video, "Um, I grew up with a lot of the friends here. Um, especially because of the gym. It's rough. It's not, it's not the nicest side of Oxnard. It's, it's rough neighborhood, this is, uh, gang-related neighborhood". Garcia said that his parents were both strawberry pickers.In a video that was published to YouTube on July 22, 2016, from the 2:24 mark of the video to the 3:00 mark of the video, Garcia talked about his father working as a strawberry picker when he said, "It was hard, difficult leaving family behind in Mexico, coming out here to work, living in one-bedroom apartment, with four or six men. You know, I was pretty young still, but I remember um, seeing him come home, just covered in, in red stains from the strawberries. You know, ripped jeans. Uh, a lot of times with patches, just random patches, from different groups, organizations or whatever, just to, you know, repair and patch up the, the, the pants, so you know he could go to work, you know. And he wanted a better life for everybody, you know. He wanted to make sure that he made money to make, make everyone's life better." Garcia and the interviewer then drove to a strawberry field. From the 7:18 mark of the video to the 7:36 mark of the video, when they got to a strawberry field, Garcia said, "Now you get to see some of the real strawberry fields. Can you imagine, being here for, twelve hours doing this, picking strawberries?", as Garcia said this Garcia proceeded to crouch down in a row of a strawberry field, and Garcia pretended to go from patch to patch, picking strawberries. Garcia then stood up, and Garcia said, "Back-breaking work man." Later, from the 8:42 mark of the video to the 9:00 mark of the video, while looking across a strawberry field, Garcia said, "You know I know this, this where my dad, worked. This where my mom, worked. My mom worked picking strawberries for, I mean, I don't know, ten, twenty years. My dad, same thing, so it's, it's, it's nice to know that, you've made it out of something like this, but you never forget, you know."
Amateur career
Garcia started his amateur career at the age of fourteen. In 2003, he won a silver medal at the National Junior Olympic Championships in the 125 lb division. In 2004, he won a gold medal at the National Junior Golden Gloves Championships and a silver medal at the National Police Athletic League Championships, both in the 132 lb division. In 2005, he won a bronze medal at the National Golden Gloves Championships and a gold medal at the National Police Athletic League Championships, both in the 132 lb division.
Amateur highlights 2003 National Junior Olympic Championships (Silver Medal, 125 lbs) 2004 National Junior Golden Gloves Championships (Gold Medal, 132 lbs) 2004 National Police Athletic League Championships (Silver Medal, 132 lbs) 2005 National Golden Gloves Championships (Bronze Medal, 132 lbs) 2005 National Police Athletic League Championships (Gold Medal, 132 lbs)
Professional career Featherweight Early career Garcia is known as a patient fighter with good punching power, a natural right-hander who likes to switch to southpaw during some of his fights. He turned pro in 2006 and signed with Bob Arum's Top Rank. Garcia was undefeated in his first 20 professional fights with 17 of them coming by way of knockout.
In April 2010, Mikey Garcia beat the veteran Tomas Villa by T.K.O. in the first round, to win the USBA Featherweight Championship. He then beat Matt Remillard to win the WBO NABO Featherweight Championship. This would not only be the last boxing bout but also the last event Nick Charles would broadcast, Charles would die a few days later from cancer.
In his next fight HBO asked Garcia to turn down a world title shot against Billy Dib to fight on the undercard of Sebastian Zbik vs. Julio César Chávez Jr. After his win over Rafaël Guzmán, Garcia sent his well wishes to Genaro Hernández who was struggling with cancer, Hernández would die a few days later. Months later he beat Juan Carlos Martinez in under four rounds at the Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Garcia vs. Salido Garcia's first major step up in competition came on January 19, 2013 against WBO Featherweight champion and Ring No. 1 ranked featherweight, Orlando Salido. His fight with Salido was originally supposed to happen on November 10, 2012 at Wynn Las Vegas but Salido broke his finger and had to pull out of the fight with Garcia fighting Jonathan Victor Barros as a late replacement. Garcia would get his chance again In front of a near sell out crowd of 4,850 at The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City, Garcia dominated the bout from the very beginning, keeping Salido at range with the jab. Garcia knocked Salido down four times early on in the fight, building up a large lead on the scorecards. During the 8th round, Salido accidentally clashed heads with Garcia, causing Garcia's nose to break. The fight was stopped between rounds, with the decision going to the scorecards. Garcia won with the scores of 79–70, 79–69, 79–69 to win his first world title. Speaking of the headbutt, Garcia said, "I had the perfect fight going on. I was beating him up good, and then he drove his head into my face -- but it was accidental." Garcia earned a career-high $220,000 purse for the fight.
Garcia vs. López Garcia was scheduled to make his first title defense against Juan Manuel López in Dallas on June 15, 2013. Garcia failed to make 126 lb weight limit coming in two pounds overweight. He was stripped of the title. The fight went ahead after Garcia paid Lopez a penalty of $150,000 for missing weight. Garcia claimed the reason for not making weight was due to missing several days of training. On fight night, Garcia re-hydrated to 142 pounds, whilst Lopez weighed 137.5 pounds on the HBO scales. In front of a crowd of 5,605 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, Garcia dominated the fight from the opening bell, dropping Lopez in round 2 following a right straight hand. In round 4, Garcia landed a left hook to Lopez, knocking him down again. At 1 minute and 35 seconds of round 4, referee Raphael Ramos waved the fight off, giving Garcia the win. After the fight, Garcia said, "I was able to land my jab and stand pretty comfortable. When I knocked him down, that gave me confidence that I could put him out early." Garcia landed 53 punches, with 40 of them being jabs.
Super featherweight Garcia vs. Martínez On August 1, 2013 the WBO ordered their junior lightweight champion Román Martínez (27–1–2, 16 KOs) to make a mandatory defence against Garcia. On September 9, the date of the purse bid, a deal was set for the fight to take place on November 9 at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi, Texas. The attendance was announced as 5,124. Garcia went down in the second round from a Martínez counter right hand. Garcia, however, recovered and dominated the rest of the fight before knocking out Martínez with a left hook to the body in the eighth round. Speaking off the knockout punch, Garcia said, "I thought it was a very good punch when I landed it. I felt I really hurt him, enough to where he wouldn't get up. I had a feeling it would be over after I connected." Garcia landed nearly half of his total 127 power punches. This included 52 punches landed in the last three rounds compared to 8 landed by Martínez. The victory meant Garcia became a two weight world champion.
Garcia vs. Burgos On December 14, 2013 it was announced that Garcia would make his first title defense against mandatory challenger, 25 year old Mexican boxer Juan Carlos Burgos (30–1–2, 20 KOs). The fight was set for January 25, 2014 at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City on a live double-header on HBO Boxing After Dark, with Bryant Jennings vs. Artur Szpilka as co-main event. Burgos was known to have fought to a split draw with former champion Román Martínez on the Garcia-Salido undercard in January 2013. Garcia went into the fight with a 11-fight knockout streak. After being staggered in the second round, Garcia took control of the fight and won close to every round for the remainder of the bout. At the end of the fight, Garcia won via unanimous decision (118–110, 118–110, 119–109), improving to 34–0. Garcia landed 163 of 567 punches thrown (29%) and Burgos landed 89 of his 564 thrown (16%).
In the post fight interview, Garcia admitted he had trouble at the start, "His height gave me difficulty. But I found my range and I found my distance and that was it." Burgos snapped Garcia's knockout streak which stretched back 4 years to 2010 and the fight also marked the first time Garcia saw out the 12 round distance. Garcia called out Yuriorkis Gamboa for a potential fight. The fight averaged 829,000 viewers and peaked at 911,000 viewers.
Contract dispute with Top Rank Garcia had been unhappy over his purses, which had been increasing to career-high six-figure levels fight after fight, sued Top Rank in April 2014 to get out of the agreement. Although in arbitration with his promoter, Garcia had expressed plans of returning to the ring under a new contract with Top Rank. On October 15, Garcia vacated his WBO title. He was due to make a mandatory defence against Interim champion Orlando Salido. Garcia also cited difficulty in making the 130 pound limit, the main reason he vacated. On April 8, 2016, it was confirmed that Garcia and Top Rank, who were locked in a dispute over his promotional contract, had reached a settlement, according to Bob Arum. Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti told ESPN.com. "All parties came to a mutual agreement, details of that agreement are a confidential matter. We all move on and do what we do." Although Garcia's Top Rank contract was up in August, they reached a deal.
Light welterweight Garcia vs. Rojas