Despite one of the most challenging years most of us have ever lived in 2020, it did give us some of the best action we've seen inside the ring in recent years and we kick off 2021 with an absolute cracker as the undefeated Ryan Garcia takes on 2012 Olympic gold medalist Luke Campbell in Dallas, Texas.
We'll be having a look at where the fight can be won for both fighters including a big prediction for the fight and all the free bets for Garcia v Campbell and our Garcia v Campbell prediction.
Touted as one of the biggest prospects in boxing, Garcia may only be 22 years of age but he's been making plenty of noise on the world scene for a few years now. The American is a 15-time national amateur champion and he finished his amateur career with a fine record of 215 wins coming from his 230 bouts in the unpaid ranks and since turning over, he's made quite an impact.
With 11 stoppage victories from his first 12 fights, the youngster only amassed 20 rounds of professional experience in those first 12 bouts and he's now continued his terrific start to his career with 17 stoppage victories coming from his first 20 fights with no losses to date.
So, how does he get the better of Campbell?
Well for starters, he's the much fresher and younger man, and, the man with the momentum. Garcia is big name in the boxing world of today and touted as the future of the division. He's the poster boy of this fight and ultimately, the one who's got a heck of a lot of pressure on him with big things expected.
Unlike Garcia, Campbell has shown he's beatable. Points defeats to Yvan Mendy, Jorge Linares and Vasyl Lomachenko have halted his path to a world title so far in his 23 fight career and the main thing they did early on in the fight was hurt the Yorkshireman. Campbell's boxing skill are second to none, so Garcia is going to have to call upon his freshness and superior hand speed to get inside of Campbell's southpaw jab and grind him down.
If he starts quick and puts it on Campbell, he's got a real chance and could well potentially get the stoppage early on, if he boxes calculated and doesn't just take the fight to the centre of the ring and start swinging for the hills with his chin in the air.
An Olympic gold medalist in London 2012, there's a fairly valid opinion around the boxing world that Campbell is one of the best fighters in the world to not win a world title yet.
After turning professional relatively late at the age of 27, like Garcia he had a terrific start to life as a professional with 12 wins and 10 stoppages coming in his first 12 fights.
However, in his 13th fight, he was on the wrong side of a shock defeat to the tough Frenchman Yvan Mendy after getting put down in the fifth round and eventually losing out on points. That was seemingly the first bit of adversity that Campbell had faced in his career and he bounced back with five back to back wins before coming unstuck once again in a split decision loss to Jorge Linares in his first world title fight back in 2017.
As he did after his first loss though, Campbell got back to winning ways with a stoppage victory over Troy James and then avenging his loss to Mendy with a comfortable points win. Once again though, he found world elite level a step too far when losing out to Vasyl Lomachenko in a fight which to his credit, the Brit did very well in.
That was, however, his last fight and that was 18 months ago so he will have some sort of ring rust coming into this fight.
Much has been made of how we haven't seen the best Garcia yet, and we don't think we've seen the best Campbell yet, either. From his notoriously awkward southpaw stance, Campbell needs to establish the jab early on. Garcia won't want to get paid for overtime so it is likely he will force the pace of the fight from early on, however, Campbell has shown he's more than capable of boxing for 12 rounds.
Something that he doesn't get enough credit for as well is his punch power. With 16 stoppages from his 20 wins, he's can clearly whack and if this fight goes late and he manages to control the pace of the fight which he is more than capable of doing, don't be surprised to see the Englishman get the stoppage victory.
To get the stoppage Campbell odds to KO Garcia is priced at 7/1.
This fight for us is not going to go the way the bookies expect this fight to go.
Garcia is currently available as short as 1/4 with some bookies and Campbell available as big as 3/1 which really is just absolutely ludicrous.
The American has only boxed 60 rounds in his career so far with Campbell boxing over double that and with Garcia only having boxed nine rounds in nearly two and a half years; he really is lacking in the experience that Campbell prides himself on.
There's a lot of hype around Garcia, and there's no question the kid can fight, but is he really that far ahead of Campbell already? We don't believe so.
Expect Campbell to use his experience to the max. He'll make Garcia follow him around the ring. He'll hit Garcia with shots he's not been hit with yet in his career and he could break him down not just physically, but mentally as well.
There's no doubt that Garcia will be a star, however, we believe this fight has just come a little bit too soon for him and we're backing Campbell to get the win.
Prediction: Luke Campbell to win - best priced 3/1 at Bet365
