Danny Garcia hoping he gets Mayweather bout in May

By Boxing News - 10/02/2013 - Comments

garcia65By Dan Ambrose: WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (27-0, 16 KO’s) is hoping that Floyd Mayweather Jr. (47-0, 26 KO’s) selects him to fight in his next bout on Cinco de Mayo in May.

Garcia feels he earned the right to face Mayweather Jr. after his recent win over WBC interim 140 lb. champion Lucas Matthysse in addition to his stoppage win over Amir Khan last year in July.

Garcia barely beat Matthysse by the scores of 114-112, 114-112 and 115-111. Garcia lucked out when he was allowed to shove Matthysse into the ropes in the 11th round and drop him when he caught tangled in the ropes.

The referee let the knockdown stand despite a clear shove from Garcia. Besides the very questionable knockdown, Garcia did a lot of holding throughout the bout, especially in the 2nd half when he was clinching at a rate 10 clinches per round without warnings or having points taken off.

Garcia said to Fightnews.com “That means a lot. Floyd’s been a champion for 17 years. I’ve been a champion for 2 years. Just for people to put my name in the same category as him, being a potential with him means a lot.”

Garcia would seem to be a really bad choice for the fight because of the potential of him clinching all night long instead of fighting. Garcia threw a lot of low blows in his last fight, and I wouldn’t want to see Mayweather getting hit low all night long and clinched. That would be the mother of all ugly fights.

His bout with Matthysse needs a do over because it stunk up the Mayweather vs. Saul “Canelo” Alvarez card due to the clinching that Garcia was allowed to get away with as well as the bogus knockdown in the 11th.

Mayweather Jr. needs to be fighting exciting opponents, not guys that are going to grab him 24/7 to put the fight into a giant stall. It could be a nightmare if a referee were to allow Garcia to clinching 10+ times per rounds to keep Mayweather from fighting.

I don’t want to see a fight like that. I expect a referee to do their job when they have a clincher in there like Garcia was in his last fight, and that obviously didn’t happen. Instead of Garcia, I’d rather see Mayweather fight Matthysse or the winner of the Adrien Broner vs. Marcos Maidana fight.

Amir Khan would also be a decent option, but not as good as Matthysse or the Broner-Maidana winner. As for Garcia, I think he needs to go back to the drawing board and focus on fighting without clinching because that’s not interesting at all to watch.

I’d rather see Mayweather fight almost anyone rather than a fighter that is going to clinch all night long, and that’s what we saw from Garcia in his fight with Matthysse.

If he clinched against Matthysse, you can bet that Garcia would be clinching Mayweather Jr. all night long in turning the fight into an ugly affair that’s not even worth watching.

Referees are supposed to penalize fighters that grab and hold, but it’s rare nowadays that you have a referee that is on his job to stop that kind of thing.

If Garcia can prove that he’s stopped clinching in his next 4 fights, then I wouldn’t mind seeing him face Mayweather as long as someone like referee Jay Nady works the fight. He doesn’t let fighters clinch a lot, and I think he would be perfect for a Mayweather-Garcia fight, but only after Garcia has proven in his next 4 fights that he’s stopped with the clinching.



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