Who Had The More Impressive Showing: Lomachenko or Garcia?

Over the past couple of weeks, we have seen two of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world deliver impressive performances. First off was Mikey Garcia dominating Adrien Broner. Garcia was able to handily defeat Broner on the cards and solidify himself as one of the best boxers in the world today. Just this past weekend, Vasyl Lomachenko delivered a great match against Miguel Marriaga. Lomachenko’s dominating performance, combined with his showboating and taunting, led to comparisons to all-time great Muhammad Ali. In light of both of these competitors amazing performances, the obligatory grandstanding has begun to start to build up some hype for a potential Lightweight dream match between the two. Considering all the posturing that has occurred as a result over the past few days, I felt like it would be important to analyze both boxers’ performances to judge who looked the best coming out of their recent fights.

Let’s start with the most recent match. Vasyl Lomachenko deliver a headline grabbing performance this past weekend against Miguel Marriaga. Lomachenko’s showboating, and ESPN primetime appearance, was far more attention grabbing than Garcia’s performance. Lomachenko handily dispatched of Marriaga, walking him down for most of the match, and taunting him while easily outmatching his abilities. That’s where part of my problem with Lomachenko’s performance begins. Marriaga was obviously a step down in competiton for Lomachenko. According to Forbes, Marriaga was a massive +1600 underdog coming into the match. Despite his bonafides, it’s clear that Marriaga was out of his league fighting Lomachenko. Marriaga was even coming off of a loss to Nicholas Walters who Lomachenko had legitimately dominated in the past. This difference in skill level leads me to downgrade Lomachenko’s performance a bit. I believe Mikey Garcia would have been able to make just as quick of work of Marriaga as Lomachenko. On top of this, Lomachenko did walk away from this match a little worse for the wear. While it’s true part of the reason for this is an accidental headbutt from Marriaga, Lomachenko was still cut up from a couple solid punches from Marriaga. Marriaga was also able to deftly dodge several flurries from Lomachenko early on. While part of this can probably be accounted for by Lomachenko’s desire to craft an entertaining bout, it’s still hard not to think that Marriaga proved a little more game for Lomachenko than initially expected. With all of these factors in mind, let’s take a look at Mikey Garcia’s recent win.

Mikey Garcia took on Adrien Broner in what many felt like could be a match of the year. What ended up happening, however, was a complete and utter one sided domination of Broner by Garcia. Garcia deftly walked down Broner into all corners of the ring. He was left unphased by Broner’s jawing later in the match. His defense skills were on full display, with a nearly impenetrable guard carrying him through many of Broner’s best shots. The only time in the fight that Garcia seemed to be at all in trouble was when Broner starting getting more physical with Garcia later in the bout. Broner landed a questionably low shot on Garcia and was then able to push around Garcia a little bit during the later rounds. Nevertheless, I am inclined to believe that Mikey Garcia deliver a more convincing win than Vasyl Lomachenko. Garcia’s opponent, albeit a slightly past his prime Adrien Broner, was still a four weight class champion. Comparatively, Lomachenko beat a fairly unknown Miguel Marriaga. In addition,  while Garcia didn’t score a knockout like Lomachenko did; he obviously had equal, if not better, control over his far superior opponent than Lomachenko did over his weaker competition. These factors all lead me to believe that Garcia delivered the overall more impressive showing.

While the fact that Garcia was more impressive leaves him with a short term momentum advantage over Lomachenko, it would be hard to say that Garcia is clearly the better fighter than Lomachenko. While it’s in my opinion that Garcia would win in a potential fight between the two, I can see sides to both arguments for either fighter winning. In the end, the most important takeaway is that these competitors amazing performances, no matter who’s was truly better, has seemingly started up the build for a potential showdown between the two. That showdown, is what every boxing fan, whether a fan of Lomachenko or Garcia, should be extremely excited to see.