Miguel Angel Garcia vs. Juan Carlos Burgos

This is tomorrow, along with two other world title bouts (Huck vs. Arslan II and Peterson vs. Jean) and yet seems to have been relegated to a 7th or 8th rung concern by many fans. :huh

IMO this ranks easily alongside Huck vs. Arslan II and Peterson vs. Jean in terms of divisional importance and potential competitiveness, and is no less interesting than any of the non-title bouts on this weekend...and that's including some real standouts like Charlo vs. Rosado and Jennings vs. Szpilka in the Showtime and HBO co-features as well as tonight's entire slate of good match-ups on three competing TV networks.

From the vBookie thread:

I suspect there is a lot of "Boxrec study" going on where Burgos is concerned here, for people to write this off as some tepid mismatch likely to be overshadowed by several other clashes, some of them far less significant. I mean, yeah, they have Burgos way down at #22 in their 130lb rankings - but that's just silly, and indicative of how flawed their computerized system with no evaluative analysis can be. :yep There is no way that Dante Jardon, Edner Cherry, or Will freaking Tomlinson rate above Burgos on any sane list, using any ratio of resume and head to head ability for criteria. The only guys above him on that list that you can say clearly deserve to be are Garcia until/unless proven otherwise, maybe Rances Barthelemy, maybe Argenis Mendez, maybe Diego Magdaleno, and maybe either of the champs with the given name Takashi. Mexican youngster Miguel Berchelt is smashing his way up the rankings and earning some cred, but is still untested. At worst, you can say Burgos is the 7th or 8th best super feather. Placing him outside ten is ludicrous, no reasonable case to be made for doing so - and outside twenty means YDKSAB.

In addition to his BR ranking, lots of lazy fans are probably noticing he is coming off two draws...and/or may have only seen those performances of his. Well, you can pretty much ignore both results. He beat up Rocky Martinez, no matter what mischief the judges perpetrated. He beat him as decisively as one can, short of how Garcia did it. As for the draw with the middling late-notice replacement Amidu, that one again should be disregarded. That was a strange move, venturing up to 135. Super feather suits him perfectly, and while nothing special Amidu is good enough and was game enough on the night (and fit enough when he got the call) to bother a noticeably flatter and less effective blown-up version of Burgos.

This is the biggest step up of Garcia's career and some are treating it like a gimme. :? Hell, there hasn't even been a poll thread made yet, and we're 24 hours out!

 

I don't mean to come across sounding pessimistic about Garcia, who I think is the real deal, or like a Burgos cheerleader - and I do expect Garcia to emerge victorious - but the overall tone of the startlingly few posts on this has been entirely dismissive of Burgos and made this seem a lopsided contest and ease-up in Garcia's matchmaking rather than his biggest test yet. I just don't get it, and felt the scales needed some balancing.

I mean, FFS, there were plenty of vocal doubters who thought Lopez, Salido and Martinez would all knock Garcia out until they were proven wrong. Now all of a sudden he faces a guy who is far more legit than any of them, and he is a 1/10 favorite and nobody even feels it's going to be competitive enough to be worth discussing? :blood Huh?

The fans and odds makers have either boomeranged too far in the other direction, from doubting Garcia to putting him on a pedestal - or they're selling Burgos very short for reasons listed above.

 

:good

It just doesn't strike me as the sort of fight where "mismatch" and "easy work for Garcia" would be appropriate. Of course if he is dominant tomorrow everyone can have a nice guffaw about my incredulity with hindsight being 20/20, but in the here and now this is a far bigger challenge than anything Garcia has faced (including his last three opponents, really his star making turns) and yet prevailing opinion has now put him far beyond Burgos' level when not long ago it placed him in the "about to get brutally exposed by Salido/Lopez/Martinez" category - with just about every opponent since Barros said to have a great chance to knock him out despite all being inferior to Burgos. :huh

 

No problem with that or with the general esteem for him now, I just don't see how there was a lot more doubt in him by and large when he was facing guys who posed less of a risk than Burgos? (not that Burgos is a stylistic nightmare for him or anything; I do still favor Garcia myself at the end of the day...but he is head and shoulders above shot JuanMa, Rocky over whom Burgos ought to have a h2h W, and yes even last year's version of Salido who to date stands as Garcia's best opponent)

 

I did not mean to single you out, and only included your post to place my reply from the other thread in context.


It's more that overall there has been a general feeling of this being overlooked as though Burgos was a nobody instead of being a step up from Garcia's last three opponents, which he is. I had been meaning to make a thread like this all week as there have been lots of comments along those lines before yours, so don't take it personal. :yep

 

Yeah, people just assumed they were more threatening on name value alone I guess? :conf Garcia vs. Lopez was a true mismatch heading in, if you knew your ****.

As for Salido rating above Burgos right now, I don't know. I like Warlando a lot but the version of him that fought Mikey? Eh, he looked beatable perhaps even by a sub-par version of Burgos (like the bloated lightweight version). Coming back and knocking out Cruz was nice and all, but not exactly a major achievement. Salido is a fantastic champ and ambassador for the sport, who gets underestimated because of his spotty record and slow hand speed but proves time after time how stupid underestimating him can be - and his longevity has been excellent - but age is catching up with him and I think he's definitely been on the slide ever since exposing JuanMa the first time back in '11. Hell, I mean, he went life and death with Haya later that same year. :!:

Prime for prime Salido is definitely on if not above Burgos' class (he did hang with a prime JMM, after all - and knock out teak-tough Mtagwa, and whoop Guerrero...) but as of 2013/2014, nah...even with Burgos having looked mediocre last time out during his weird little 135lb field trip.