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Matchroom Boxing has the option to match any offers for Garcia’s services after his next fight.
Mikey Garcia’s last fight was on a $75 pay-per-view, now we know his next fight will be on DAZN.
Matchroom Boxing announced on Sunday that they have agreed to a deal with the former unified lightweight champion, with his next fight scheduled for February 29th against an opponent to be determined. One opponent in play is former welterweight champion Jessie Vargas (29-2-2, 11 KOs), although nothing is set in stone.
According to The Athletic’s Mike Coppinger, “the pact includes a one-fight option that stipulates Hearn can match any competing offer to retain the fighter’s services.” Garcia has been a promotional free agent, working on a fight-by-fight basis with Premier Boxing Champions ever since his nasty split with Top Rank Boxing. Matchroom’s Hearn has relentlessly pursued Mikey ever since DAZN launched last year, and now he has him at least for one bout.
Garcia (39-1, 30 KOs) is coming off a unanimous decision loss to Errol Spence Jr, in an audacious attempt to jump from 135 lbs to 147 lbs to win the IBF welterweight title. He has won major world titles at featherweight, junior lightweight, lightweight, and junior welterweight, and has notably beaten Adrien Broner, Sergey Lipinets, Orlando Salido, and and Juan Manuel Lopez. His fight with Spence, which marked the pay-per-view debuts of both men, exceeded 300,000 buys and draw in more than 47,000 fans to Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, with many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans pulling for him.
Some may recall that UFC president Dana White was reportedly “closing in” on a deal to sign Garcia last year as part of Zuffa Boxing, but Zuffa Boxing hasn’t actually launched yet, and obviously the deal never materialized.
Garcia’s purse for his DAZN debut is (per The Athletic) expected to be approximately $7 million, which is a lot of money but also likely in the neighborhood for what he earned for the Spence fight.
DAZN needs subscribers, so getting another top-level boxer with some semblance of a fanbase is a plus for them. Canelo Alvarez, Gennadiy Golovkin, and Anthony Joshua are the other notable boxers on the streaming platform.