By Dan Ambrose: WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (29-0, 17 KOs) is hoping to come out of his April 11th fight this Saturday night a star on NBC in his 143 pound catch-weight fight against IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (33-2-1, 17 KOs) on the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Garcia, 27, wants to showcase his skills in front of a lot of new fans that will be catching the fight on NBC. One downside of the Garcia-Peterson fight will be that neither fighter will have their titles on the line. Garcia wanted the fight at a catch-weight of 143, which makes it a non-title fight. The titles really don’t matter a whole though.
Garcia is considered the No.1 fighter in the 140 pound division, and Peterson is seen by a lot of boxing fans as the No.3 or possibly the No.4 best fighter in the division. Lucas Mathysse is seen as No.2, and some fans see former WBO light welterweight champion Chris Algieri as No. 3. All this will likely change in the near future with Terence Crawford now fighting at 140. He could work his way to the No.1 spot after Garcia officially moves up to 140.
Matthysse would still be a very tough fight for Crawford. The two of them will never likely face each other due to Matthysse fighting for Golden Boy Promotions, and Crawford with Top Rank.
Peterson isn’t a big puncher like Garcia is, but he is a very good body puncher, and he puts a lot of pressure on his opponents. If Peterson is able to handle Garcia’s powerful left hook and deal with his constant clinching, it could be an interesting fight. However, it’s not a good sign that Peterson was destroyed so easily by Lucas Matthysse in their fight in 2013. The thought is that if Peterson couldn’t hang more than 3 rounds with Matthysse, then there’s little chance that Peterson will be able to deal with Garcia. Peterson doesn’t have the punching power to keep Garcia off of him.
“It’s a big fight and it’s the fight the fans wanted. We’re going to give the fans a great night of boxing on NBC, and it’s time to show the world Danny is the star of NBC,” Garcia said via Fightnews.com. “We have common opponents like [Amir] Khan and Matthysse and we’ve had different results. They say styles make fights, so those results don’t matter. Well, my style is to kick his butt.”
Peterson defeated Khan by a controversial 12 round decision in 2011; whereas Garcia stopped Khan in the 4th round in 2012. Garcia defeated Matthysse by a clinch and low blow filled fight in 2013. Garcia obviously did better than Peterson did in his fights against Khan and Matthysse. That doesn’t mean that Peterson will be able to
“A lot of things have changed for me in the last few years, everybody knows me now,” Garcia said. “A lot of people look at you different now, but it doesn’t make my head bigger, it just motivates me to work hard.”
The Peterson vs. Garcia fight is a decent one, but it doesn’t compare to the interest that was generated with the Garcia vs. Matthysse fight. It’s not nearly as interesting as that fight was. Peterson doesn’t have the same fan base that Matthysse does with the hardcore boxing fans, and few people see the Garcia-Peterson fight as a competitive match-up like they did with the Garcia-Matthysse fight. It’s still going to be a good fight for as long as it lasts, but there’s not the drama and suspense that goes with this fight that the Garcia vs. Matthysse match-up had.
Presumably this will be the last fight that Garcia takes before moving up to welterweight. I can’t imagine him continuing to drag his opponents into catch-weight fights above 140. Garcia’s last fight against lightweight Rod Salka was a catch-weight fight at 142 pounds last August.
The last time that Garcia defended his WBA and WBC light welterweight titles was over a year ago when he defended them against Mauricio Herrera in beating him by a controversial 12 round decision last year in March. Why the WBA and WBC hasn’t stripped Garcia of his titles is unclear, but he hasn’t defended either of them for over a year now.
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