Ready or not, here comes Spence-Garcia.
The will they, won’t they dance between pound for pound elite fighter Miguel “Mikey” Garcia (39-0, 30 KOs) and top lightweight contender Richard Commey (27-2, 24 KOs) has moved to its last note. It will not be happening. Garcia has elected to vacate his IBF 135 lb belt rather than face the Ghanaian, presumably to set up a more lucrative and physically dangerous battle with welterweight titleholder Errol Spence Jr (24-0, 21 KOs) for February.
Originally the purse bid for Garcia to fight his mandatory IBF challenger was called as it always is, but then the teams of Garcia and Commey reportedly had reached an agreement for the bout and the bid was called off. Although this gave me brief hope that the desired Spence fight was dead, it was still meant to be it seems. The Garcia-Commey contract never was signed despite being reportedly agreed to and the IBF ordered another purse bid. Today that was canceled, however, when the lightweight star informed the sanctioning body that he would instead be giving up the title.
Instead, Dibella Entertainment promoted Richard Commey will be ordered to fight Russian top available contender Isa Chaniev (13-1, 6 KOs) for the freshly vacated belt. Chaniev earned his position by comfortably outpointing Ismael Barroso in an impressive May performance. A new purse bid will have to happen now, starting the process all over again. Commey will get his world title opportunity at least though. He’ll be a favorite to win it too unless the fight ends up in Russia, and it might. The highest bidder will get to host the fight and the Russians have certainly put in big bids to nab title fights before, though I don’t think Chaniev is super well known even at home so the money to pull it off might not be there. We’ll have to wait and see.
As for Garcia, all signs continue to point to the potential Showtime PPV against powerful welterweight Errol Spence Jr in a two weight class jump tentatively planned for February. I’ve been on the record that I don’t like it for competitive reasons and nothing has changed on that front, but what can I do but cover the story as it continues to develop? This is the second IBF title Garcia has dumped this year after also vacating his junior welterweight title rather than meet Ivan Baranchyk. For now Mikey still has the WBC lightweight belt. He may or may not be able to hold on to that if he goes through with the Spence fight. It’s a lot to ask a sanctioning body, but the WBC takes this on a much more case by case basis than the almost always super strict IBF. He might be able to hold onto his green belt.
