By Dan Ambrose: It’s now official now that Danny Garcia (29-0, 17 KOs) will be facing Lamont Peterson (33-2-1, 17 KOs) on April 11th in a catch-weight fight at 143 pounds in the “Premier Boxing Championship” series on NBC at 8:30 p.m E/T at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
The fight is only scheduled for 10 rounds, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. One can only guess why the fight is only scheduled for 10 rounds instead of the normal 12 rounds, but it’s likely out of concern for Garcia to make sure he doesn’t gas out and look bad in a 12 round fight.
Garcia will be carrying an extra three pounds over the normal 140 pound weight that he’s been fighting at. In his last fight against little lightweight Rod Salka, Garcia fought at a catch-weight of 143 pounds in that fight as well, but the fight was over quickly with Garcia blasting out the overmatched Salka.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPZcxbxeH6Q
You have to wonder whether Peterson has a real chance of winning this fight if it goes to the scorecards because Garcia appeared to have been beaten last year in his fight against Mauricio Herrera in a fight that many boxing fans saw Herrera winning. However, Garcia was given a 12 round decision in their fight in Puerto Rico.
Instead of looking to clear up the controversy surrounding his questionable win, Garcia decided to move on as if he had won by a mandate instead of a questionable decision. The fight showed pretty clearly that Garcia is a very flawed fighter who can beaten if he’s unable to score a knockout.
The undercard will have former WBO 160lb champion Peter Quillin challenging for the WBO middleweight title against champion Andy Lee in the co-feature bout.
The Garcia-Peterson fight was a fight that fans thought was going to take place in 2014, but instead we saw their mutual adviser Al Haymon setting them up in mismatches against the likes of Rod Salka and Anglo Santana.
“It’s an honor to be fighting back in Brooklyn where I’ve experienced some of the best moments of my career,” said Garcia. “Fans have been asking for this fight for so long and on April 11 I’m planning on giving them the show they’ve been waiting for. Doing it live on NBC will make it even sweeter.”
I don’t think the Garcia-Peterson fight is one that “fans have been asking for this fight for so long” like Garcia is talking about. Garcia seems to have overestimated the fan interest in his fight against Lamont Peterson to the extreme.
This is actually a fight that boxing fans seem to have lukewarm interest in rather than a strong interest. The reason why is because Peterson doesn’t have a huge fan base, and he’s never beaten anyone other than Amir Khan that the casual boxing fans can recognize.
Besides that, Peterson was knocked out in just three rounds by Lucas Matthysse in their fight in 2013. Peterson never avenged his loss to Matthysse, so that obviously hurts his popularity even more. Boxing fans want to see Garcia face guys like Viktor Postol, who Garcia paid a step aside fee to so he could face Peterson instead. Fans also want to see Garcia fight rematches against Herrera, Matthysse and Khan rather than seeing him fight Peterson.
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