Mikey Garcia ordered to defend title against Richard Commey

Mikey Garcia has been ordered to make a mandatory defense of his IBF lightweight title against Richard Commey, but given that we’re unlikely to see that fight as Garcia plans to move to welterweight to fight Errol Spence Jr, the title likely will become vacant in the near future.

The IBF states that Garcia and Commey have until August 30 to negotiate, at which point they’ll order a purse bid. But again, all of this probably means nothing, unless Garcia has a massive change of plan.

Garcia (39-0, 30 KO) won the IBF belt from Robert Easter Jr in a title unification on July 28, adding it to his WBC title at 135 pounds. But the plan even before that fight was for Mikey to move to 147 and face Spence later this year, provided he beat Easter as expected, which he did.

Commey (27-2, 24 KO) is a legitimate contender at 135 pounds and a tough out for anyone. He fought for the vacant IBF title in 2016, losing a split decision to Easter, and then dropped a split decision on the road in Russia against Denis Shafikov.

Since then, he’s won three straight fights, and just fought this past Saturday, stopping Yardley Cruz in two rounds. Most likely, we’re going to see Commey face the next available contender for the vacant title.

At last update, the IBF had Commey rated No. 1 contender, with nobody at the No. 2 slot. Isa Chaniev, Edis Tatli, Masayoshi Nakatani, Roman Andreev, Kazuhiro Nishitani, Mario Barrios, Emiliano Marsili, and Anthony Crolla rounded out the top 10.

There’s also a chance that Commey could simply rematch Easter for the belt, depending on where Easter falls in the IBF ratings after his loss to Garcia.