Lightweight Jamie Kavanagh (12-0-1, 5 KOs) will fight Salvador Garcia (14-6, 7KOs) at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, California on Friday night in a contest scheduled for eight rounds. The fight will be televised on ShoBox: The Next Generation.
Kavanagh, who is co-managed by Freddie Roach (who is also his head trainer) and Steve Feder, was last in action on November 3 when he won a unanimous decision over the tough Ramon Valadez.
In this fight he will face Garcia, who is from Whittier, California and has not fought since October 2007. The 33-year-old has spent a lot of his career in and around the super bantamweight division, and he lost his last three fights before the long hiatus from the ring.
The Irish Voice caught up with Feder to find out how things are going in the Kavanagh camp.
“He is in fantastic shape. Sedano (Ruiz, Kavanagh’s trainer from his amateur days who takes care of his day-to-day preparations) has really been focusing on his defensive work, not specifically for this opponent, but in general,” Feder said.
Mexican lightweight Antonio Orozco was meant to be the first TV fight this Friday, but when he got injured the Kavanagh fight, which is being fought at a catchweight of 136 pounds, was promoted to the televised part of the show.
Ruiz will work the corner this weekend as Roach is busy helping prepare welterweight Ruslan Provodnikov for his title fight with Timothy Bradley on March 16. Feder is confident that Kavanagh can continue to make progress.
“What is important is for him to look good and to learn from every fight,” added Feder.
While team Kavanagh is not taking Garcia for granted, if he emerges victorious and unscathed they hope to see him back in the ring at the end of April/start of May.
In other news, light heavyweight Seanie Monaghan told the Irish Voice on Monday that he is back in action on April 13 at Radio City Music Hall on the undercard of the Nonito Donaire/Guillermo Rigondeaux fight for the WBO and WBA super bantamweight titles.
Monaghan (17-0, 10 KOs) was last in action on January 19 at Madison Square Garden when he defeated Roget Cantrell by unanimous decision. No opponent has been confirmed as of yet.
Meanwhile, featherweight Patrick Hyland was an interested spectator at the Foxwoods Resort in Connecticut last Friday night where he saw IBF champion Billy Dib lose his belt by spit decision to Evgeny Gradovich.
The Dubliner lost to Javier Fortuna in a WBA interim title fight in December, but he is back in Marlboro, New York, training, though he has no official date for his next fight. Hyland had wanted to challenge Dib for his belt and it will be interesting to see what his next step will be.
Finally, according to boxrec.com, featherweight Allan Phelan (1-2) will return to action on May 4 at the Resorts Casino in Jamaica, Queens in a contest scheduled for four rounds.
The Kildare native lost to Micah Branch at the same venue in September but bounced back with a first round TKO win over Juan Guzman on February 16 in the Dominican Republic.
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