Hector Luis Garcia was watching television in trainer Bob Santos’s home a couple of weeks ago when the news broke.
He was being named as a late replacement to challenge Chris Colbert in a WBA super featherweight world title eliminator at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas on Saturday night after Roger Gutierrez tested positive for COVID-19.
Just like that, the undefeated Dominican fighter was elated.
“My life changed radically overnight,” Garcia tells DAZN News over a recent Zoom conference.
“My whole perspective, the way that I was feeling, my faith, my hope, absolutely everything in my life took a turn after realizing that I was going to have this opportunity.”
The 30-year-old Garcia (14-0, 10 KOs) now stares down trying to take this sliver of an opening and make it a crater-size statement by planting his flag in an upset.
“I can tell you this — there’s going to be a world of trouble for Chris Colbert this weekend and I’m going to be exiting The Cosmopolitan through the biggest door possible with a brand new future.”
It's not that Garcia isn’t impressed with Colbert’s body of work thus far. He is. It’s more that his utmost confidence lies in his own boxing ability and this timing of proving it to the boxing world on an apt stage.
“This certainly isn’t going to be an easy fight with somebody as skilled as Chris Colbert,” Garcia states.
“But I also am in firm belief that I possess the skill and the capability of standing up on my own and being able to go head-to-head with him. I don’t think he’s going to be that hard to beat. It’s not going to be that challenging. It’s going to be about what I’m able to do inside the ring.”
Garcia also believes that he has a built-in edge over Colbert with this short-notice opportunity.
“It absolutely is an advantage because I was preparing for him since the beginning,” Garcia explains.
“He wasn’t preparing for me. I’m on a surge of adrenaline with such motivation that you can’t take me off this wave. I’m on cloud nine right now and I plan to show what I’m capable of.”
Garcia was just in action December, having scored an eight-round unanimous decision over Isaac Avelar. Colbert is coming off a dominant unanimous decision victory over Tugstsogt Nyambayar in July to become the WBA interim super featherweight world champion. His planned fight against Gutierrez was supposed to be for the latter’s WBA world title, before Gutierrez’s misfortunate paved the way for Garcia’s elbow room to inject himself as a 130-pound force.
Before Saturday night’s opportunity even presented itself, Garcia had been eyeing Colbert and his rise up the super featherweight ranks. Now, he’s looking to lay down his own building blocks to make sure that Colbert's stock doesn't get any higher.
“Colbert has certainly faced good opponents and I respect him a lot as a fighter and person because he built his career from the ground up and he kept surpassing barriers,” Garcia says.
“He kept going over obstacles and raising the level of challenges that he had.
“So, now, I’m going to be another challenge that hopefully he doesn’t overcome.”
DAZN News will bring you all the live updates, results and highlights from Chris Colbert vs. Hector Garcia on Saturday night, beginning at 10 p.m. ET.