Garcia can break Khan with pressure

By Boxing News - 06/21/2012 - Comments

Image: Garcia can break Khan with pressureBy William Mackay: WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (23-0, 14 KO’s) can make his job much easier for himself on July 14th in his fight against Amir Khan (26-2, 18 KO’s) if he takes a page out of the playbook used by Breidis Prescott and Lamont Peterson by pressuring Khan to wear him down.

Garcia will get picked apart if he lets Khan choose when and where he wants to land his shots. Khan is a Freddie Roach fighter now, and Roach teaches his soft-chinned fighters to constantly circle the ring rather than mixing it up with their opponents.

Since Khan started training with Roach, we’ve seen Khan in track meets against Marcos Maidana, Peterson and Andriy Kotelnik. The fights where Khan didn’t run was in bouts that were so one-sided that he never had to, such as Paul McCloskey, Dmitry Salita and a timid Zab Judah. Garcia has to pressure Khan, cut off the ring and not let him escape the pressure.

Garcia failed to impress in his recent win over Erik Morales last March. It would have been a much easier fight for Garcia if he had really gone after Morales in a concerted way instead of allowing to fight at a much slower pace that was more suited for the aging 35-year star. Garcia paid for his mistake by suffering a broken nose from Morale’s hard jabs.

If he’s to beat Khan on July 14th at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, in Las Vegas, Garcia is going to have to stay on Khan the entire fight and not give him any breathing room. Garcia needs to get in close and hammer Khan.

This is perhaps the best way of beating him because Khan can’t fight on the inside at all, and will likely resort to fouling to keep Garcia from taking advantage. We could see Khan shoving, pulling down on Garcia’s head and wrapping him up in offensive stalling headlocks. This is why Garcia has to learn to hammer Khan when he grabs him around the head. Garcia also needs to make sure he sprints back at Khan after he gets shoved or when Khan is galloping around the ring to keep from taking punishment.



Comments are closed.