By Bart Barry-
Saturday in Los Angeles in a match that unified lightweight titles without undisputing them Mikey Garcia outboxed Robert Easter and decisioned him unanimously, much as oddsmakers, aficionados and Garcia himself expected he would. Then Garcia did something unexpected by requesting a match with one of the world’s two best welterweights. Potent at 135 pounds, Garcia’s punching didn’t march to 140 quite as expected in March, making him something less than a twofisted threat at 147.
Garcia made his shocking callout immediately after beating Easter because he’s aware enough of everything that happens in a prizefighting ring to know how temporarily gullible television makes us and how fully history later erases what enthusiasm accompanied the gullibility, often with a bite. On television you can get yourself likened to Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez by beating Sergey Lipinets, and likened to Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo simply by signing to fight Robert Easter, but you also know if ever you bump into Pacquiao or Marquez and present your Lipinets and Easter scalps they’ll wonder what you’re doing.
Garcia touched Easter early in round 2 Saturday and an alarm sounded on the canvas, a vibratory something both fighters and the referee sensed immediately: “A protected man is here.” Whatever victories brought Easter in a ring with Garcia, however deserving’f celebration they were in their moments, they were not proportionate with his titles, and now everyone had to know. Easter sensed in that moment his ascent was a bit of a ruse, and now the ruse was up, and worst of all, he sensed, Garcia knew it too well to let it go. Easter still had his prohibitive height and reach advantage, prohibitive enough his handlers (who ought’ve known better) failed to notice these last 5 1/2 years his poor footwork and pushy jab, but he’d no chance at intimidating or dissuading Garcia unto victory; Easter was going to lose, the question was how, and what might change after he lost.
Garcia went in Easter with classic boxing, 1-2 3-2 1-2, chastened Easter with every jab, frothed him with every cross. Therein lies most of Garcia’s appeal; he proves what every boxing coach has preached every year since about the time of Odysseus: If you take what you learn your first month in the gym and practice it till perfection then apply it fearlessly, you’ll surprise everyone how far it takes you. A minute into Saturday’s match Garcia feinted Easter out of position by throwing even his rangefinders properly; Garcia measured Easter for counters and realized the task before him might be still easier than he visualized while partying in his dressing room during the undercard.
Easter didn’t yet realize his task was hopeless. He was the taller, busier guy with the fast hands, and everyone told him his combination of speed and reach was otherwordly – so what if he tripped over his feet a little just then?
Then Easter’s righthand started wandering out to do pickoff duty. Garcia hooked round it just to see, and what he saw was Easter yanking on the back of his own head, tweaking the axle, imbalancing the apparatus, making mistakes too big to correct with the bigness of his frame. Easter started moving back like he didn’t know why he was moving back but yet he was moving back. If Easter wasn’t frightened he began to look frightened.
Garcia did things just right; he took Easter’s jabs to the body without moving his hands a centimeter offline: If this gangly dude is willing to shrink to my height to pittypat my belly, amen to that! In round 3 Garcia dropped Easter linearly: 1-2-3. That basic. Everything about Easter’s ascent told him basic couldn’t touch him, and yet basic just dropped him near effortlessly, Easter’s feet a tangled then splayed mess. Do notice how unaffected Garcia was by the act of dropping Easter – he’d said the right things in the leadup and promised Easter was a fellow champ, not a bend in the road, but Garcia’s prerehearsed postfight plans belied most of that.
Round 9 Easter bloodied Garcia’s nose by fighting deep inside but the tactic pained and exhausted Easter while energizing Garcia, and Easter smartly cancelled it for what nine minutes remained. When the results were announced Easter wore what placidity of countenance told most of this story; he stayed buoyant in case his handlers made good on implications he was the money fighter, the future, and anything close should go his way, but relief washed over it all when the result was just and he could relax.
Which is a way of writing none of this is Robert Easter’s fault and shouldn’t be held against him or his other Band Campers who are good athletes doing what any of us might. It’s hard to imagine there being impetus or skill enough to overhaul Easter’s flaws – Kevin Cunningham, after all, never repaired any part in Devon Alexander’s jab and telegraphed delivery – and so there’ll be roundrobins and such between prospects and “the youngest lightweight champion in PBC history” (or however else they market Easter), but whatever greatness Easter attains will be of the sterile, PBC sort, safe and gainful paydays under an unacknowledged ceiling above which actually historic things happen.
Those things might elude Garcia as they have thus far, and it scares Garcia more than Errol Spence does, evidently. Why else suggest Spence afterwards? No one asked for the fight. It makes little sense for either man. A Spence victory makes Errol look like another cherrypicker bully. A Garcia victory, highly unlikely, takes years off Garcia’s career.
Maybe that’s what Mikey’s after. He’s incredibly good at something he’s a little reluctant to do – frankly, challenging Spence is the act of a man who simply has had it with hearing from familiars: “If only I’d have had your talent . . .”
It’s not a cash-out but a legacy-out, a way to preclude what demonic what-ifs keep preternatural-in-their-prime men like Roy Jones still collecting headshots decades later. Better to reach one’s limits whilst feeling limitless than after, better to mark the boundaries of your talent, set your arms in a W and start doing more seriously things you’d rather be doing.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
