About not fighting Linares:
“It’s part of the business of boxing,” Garcia told BoxingScene.com. “Just like I see Golden Boy [Promotions] looking out for the best interests of their company, I also have to look out for my best interests, the best business for Mikey Garcia.”
“We both want that fight,” Garcia said. “Linares and myself want that fight. It’s hard when the business doesn’t allow it to happen. But we, myself and Golden Boy, said we would both take a fight in between. He’s fighting January 27th. I’m fighting February the 10th. We agreed that right after my fight we would get back together and start having a conversation about maybe getting a fight with Linares sometime in the summer.”
“However, when we looked at the purses and the guarantees and the percentages and all that, we thought, along with Golden Boy, it’s best to wait. A fight like that is a tougher sell in January than it is in May or June. So that’s why we said, ‘You know what? Let’s both take another fight in between and then we’ll see each other in the summer.’ ”
About not fighting Easter:
“He’s willing to fight me and I’m willing to fight him,” Garcia told BoxingScene.com. “But when the purse was not really exciting, not what we both want, it’s hard to get those fights done. And people forget, everybody wants to get paid, everyone wants to get money. No one likes to take pay cuts.
“Whatever job you’re doing, if the boss comes and tells you, ‘I can only pay you this much because I don’t have it in the budget,’ I’m sure you’re gonna complain about why they’re cutting your money. Nobody likes to take a pay cut. So we also wanna make sure that we’re being taken care of financially, as well as in boxing.”
“I’m not saying he’s not worthy, but it just didn’t make [financial] sense for this fight in January,” Garcia said. “Maybe on another occasion we could actually get that fight [made], but it didn’t make sense for this fight.
“When it came down to the purses, again, if the guy can’t get paid what he’s asking for or generate the money that we need in sales to pay him what he’s asking for, or to get paid what we need to get paid, also, sometimes the budget ain’t gonna work.”