Saturday night in Fresno, California, some may have recalled Merchant's phrase and yet others may have preferred the phrase from childhood "Whatever comes around goes around" when you saw someone get their comeuppance.
By all accounts, Mikey Garcia had a great career in winning titles in three divisions but he often was his own worst enemy outside the ring in refusing to budge in order to make career-defining fights, several long layoffs between fights, promotional disputes, and a refusal to see that one doesn't become an A-side until you compromise a little to defeat an A-side fighter or two.
Add to that what seemed to be an almost disdain for the sport and one could easily see Mikey Garcia being upset by a lesser fighter sooner or later.
What no one saw as Spaniard Sandor Martin, who had lost to the only name fighter on his record in former title challenger Anthony Yigit, and was a more than prohibitive underdog to be overwhelmed by Garcia in yet another Garcia "need to get the rust off" after a self-enforced inactive period, take advantage of an unprepared and unmotivated Garcia to win a shocking majority decision in arguably the biggest upset in years.
The fight was slow and lacked a lot of action, so Martin did the one thing that he could do to win, even against a dull Garcia- stick, move, and pray for help on the scorecards.
Martin controlled through his boxing from outside with Garcia throwing just one punch at a time and the big question was this- Would the unknown fighter get the close decision that he deserved against the hometown big name?
To my surprise, he did with two scores of 96-94 (same as mine) and a third of a 98-92 for a majority decision that was as big of a surprise as any fight in recent years.
Matchroom CEO Eddie Hearn stated that there was not a rematch clause for the two but really a rematch will be the largest financial option for Martin and for Garcia, he almost will have to defeat Martin in order to return to contender status.
Mikey Garcia always talked about how much he never liked boxing and with his behavior towards the business of boxing Garcia showed that out.
However, it is not unfair to consider that Mikey Garcia may have already given boxing the best that the sport will see and what boxing historians and fans could eventually decide about Mikey Garcia for all of his accomplishments that boxing never saw the best that he could have offered.
In the co-feature, mandatory challenger Jonathan Gonzalez spoiled the plans for a light flyweight unification fight as Gonzalez won the WBO title via split decision over Elwin Soto.
In many ways, Gonzalez's win was very much like the victory that would follow later in the evening by Sandor Martin- Gonzalez used the stick and move method and held off the weak aggression of Soto that probably deserved a unanimous decision rather than a split nod.
Gonzalez winning two cards (and mine) at 116-112 with a pretty bad 116-112 card for Soto in opposition was the fair result and ruined a unification fight with Soto and WBA champion Hiroto Kyoguchi that was planned for next year.
The best fighter of the weekend won his showcase bout in his home country as Mairis Bredis kept his IBF cruiserweight belt with a third-round knockout of Germany's Artur Mann in Riga, Latvia.
Breidis knocked Mann down in the second round before adding two more in the third to finish the outmatched Mann.
Breidis did announce his intention to face the second-best fighter in the division, England's Lawrence Okolie, and unify the IBF and WBO titles before both fighters would move to the heavyweight division.
It's the best fight that can be made with the cruiserweight and hopefully can be signed for the first half of 2021.
In Newcastle, England, Hughie Fury defeated Christian Hammer vis TKO when Hammer was unable to continue after the fifth round.
I thought Fury won all five rounds but the fifth round did see several exchanges between the two and the injury to Hammer's bicep that forced the ending in the corner was ill-timed as it occurred just as the fight was starting to open up.
In the boxing challenge, Ramon Malpica and I each scored three points to move the total to 140-120.
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