Garcia Dominates Broner to Earn a Unanimous Decision on Showtime

Mikey Garcia may not have had his WBC lightweight title on the line Saturday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, but his fight was possibly more important than if it had been. Garcia took on his highest-profile opponent to date -- former four-division world champion Adrien Broner -- and outclassed him en route to a unanimous decision win.

After the junior welterweight battle began slowly, the Oxnard-based fighter found his rhythm and began picking Broner apart. Garcia moved well often and tagged the Cincinnati native with crisp punches to the head and body. Broner had his moments in the contest, but they were few and far between as Garcia maintained control in virtually all of the exchanges.

Though Broner (33-3, 24 KOs) was rocked by a combo upstairs late in the battle, neither man was ever in any serious danger of being stopped. There were no knockdowns in the contest but Garcia was on point from start to finish and won a well-deserved unanimous decision. Two of the judges had it 116-112 and the third saw it 117-111 for Garcia, who remained unbeaten in improving to 37-0 with 30 KOs.

In the Showtime-televised co-feature, middleweight contender Jermall Charlo was far too much for the out-gunned Sebastian Heiland to handle. Charlo, a former world champion at junior middleweight, dropped Heiland (29-5-2, 16 KOs) with a flawless left hook in the second and nearly finished him in that stanza. Charlo (26-0, 20 KOs) was patient and wound up scoring another knockdown in the fourth with the left hook again before getting the TKO at the 2:13 mark of the frame when Heiland’s corner threw in the towel. Charlo could wind up fighting the winner of the mega fight between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Gennady Golovkin next month.