By Dan Ambrose: WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (29-0, 17 KOs) was ecstatic last night with his accomplishment of having beaten lightweight Rod Salka (19-4, 3 KOs) by a 2nd round knockout.
Garcia says that he could have done the same thing to any other fighter in the division if they had been in the ring with him last night instead of Salka.
Sounding like a lecturer instead of a fighter, Garcia said after the fight “There are no easy fights in boxing. The [Mauricio] Herrera fight was supposed to be an easy fight for me, and I listened to people and had a bad performance. I’m in charge at 140. I can beat everybody at 140. It’s not even a question. I want to do everything that Golden Boy wants me to do, and everything that Al Haymon wants me to do.”
Garcia is saying he’s the best at 140 because he beat Lucas Matthysse last year. But that was nearly a year ago, and things change. Garcia hasn’t acted like the same fighter since that bout. If he wants to make a claim of being the best fighter in the light welterweight division then he’s going to needs to start fighting the rest of the top fighters.
If Garcia can truly beat everybody at 140, the big question is why wasn’t he fighting one of them last Saturday night? Why was he fighting Salka instead of Lamont Peterson or one of the other top light welterweights like Adrien Broner, Ruslan Provodnikov, Lucas Matthysse or Viktor Postol?
Garcia says he’s an exciting fighter who likes to entertain his fans, then why isn’t he doing that? He lost his fight against Herrera in the eyes of many of his fans, and instead of fighting him again, he’s fighting a 50-1 underdog in Salka. Garcia says Haymon chose Salka. Well why didn’t Garcia tell Haymon that he wasn’t interested in that fight? Garcia could have said no. The same with his father Angel Garcia. He could have turned down Salka for a bigger fight, but instead he said yes to it.
Last Saturday, Garcia looked like the same fighter that Herrera beat. It was the same guy only a little bit bigger. Garcia reportedly rehydrated up to 155 for the fight, which effectively made him a middleweight against a guy that was full of water weight to get him up to the 142 pound limit. I doubt that Salka weighed more than 142 last Saturday, because he looked a lot lighter than Garcia.
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