Mikey Garcia may have lost his title on the scales before his fight with Juan Manuel Lopez, but he redeemed himself in the ring, earning a fourth-round TKO victory over JuanMa.
As Yahoo! Sports' Kevin Iole reported, Garcia was forced to drop his WBO featherweight championship after tipping the scales at 128 pounds at Friday's weigh-ins. He was given extra time to complete his weight cut, but couldn't get down to the 125-pound featherweight limit.
Garcia went right to work from the outset to prove that his struggles to make weight wouldn't affect him. As Dan Rafael of ESPN tweeted out, Garcia caught Lopez with a clean right hand and scored a knockdown in Round 2.
It would be a sign of things to come. Lopez survived the knockdown, but appeared to still be feeling the effects in Round 3. Garcia once again took him to task, beating him to the punch multiple times.
Garcia went into Round 4 continuing to land his weapon of choice—the left hook. The (former) WBO champion went to the punch early and often, eventually landing it one last time to seal the deal as Lopez went down one last time.
The win stretched Garcia's unbeaten streak 32-0 with 27 knockouts. Lopez's record now falls to 33-3 with all three losses coming by way of knockout.
Due to Garcia's inability to make weight for the title fight, the WBO championship has been vacated. Coming off of the impressive knockout victory, it will be interesting to see if he decides to move up in weight or look to regain his belt.
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