Danny Garcia: I need a couple of fights at 147 before I face Mayweather or Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 04/12/2015 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: After narrowly getting by IBF 140lb champ Lamont Peterson (33-3-1, 17 KOs) in a tougher than expected fight last Saturday, WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (30-0, 17 KOs) says he’s interested in facing superstars Floyd Mayweather Jr and/or Manny Pacquiao at 147, but he feels he needs to take a couple of fights first at the weight.

Garcia’s dad Angel Garcia seems reluctant for Garcia to move up to 147. Angel kept repeating that Garcia is the world champion at 140, and that’s his division. There appears to be some indecision about whether Danny should move up in weight to get after the likes of Mayweather and Pacquiao.

“I would love to fight one of them [Pacquiao or Mayweather],” Garcia said via ESPN.com. “But I need a couple of fights at 147 first.”

Angel Garcia said “The next thing is to defend the title at 140. Danny is the champ at 140. 147 is something Danny has been talking about, but he’s the champion at 140. He wants to move up but right now he’s the 140 pound champion of the world.”

It seems to me that Garcia needs to sit down and make a decision with his dad Angel about whether he wants to take the risk to move up to 147 to go after Mayweather and Pacquiao. It looks like Angel wants Danny to stay at 140 and continue to defend his titles against the contenders down there. What might be a smarter move would be for Garcia to move up to the welterweight division, take a couple of soft touches that aren’t a risk for him, and then cash out against Mayweather or Pacquiao. I think it’s pretty clear after watching Garcia fight last night that he would be no match for either Mayweather or Pacquiao. Further, Garcia doesn’t look like he’d match up well against some of the other top fighters either at 147. That’s why he might need to go back to Rod Salka type opposition to keep him winning long enough for him to get a big money payday fight against Mayweather or Pacquiao.

If Garcia stays at 140, he could get beaten at some point in the near future, possibly in his next fight if he chooses to defend his WBC title against his WBC mandatory challenger Victor Postol. Danny and Angel don’t seem to be too impressed with Postol, but I think Garcia would be vulnerable to getting beaten by this guy. Garcia needs to remember that he was pretty well dominated by Peterson last night, and there’s now a blueprint on how to beat him from that fight. Postol throws a lot of punches and he could end up beating Garcia up and taking his titles. It doesn’t matter that Postol isn’t a big puncher. Peterson wasn’t a big puncher either, but he still had Garcia’s face breaking down from the effects of his punches, and he had him looking plenty worried.

“I do think I have to go up in weight because it’s affecting my performance, but feel like I did a great job tonight,” Garcia said.

As for a rematch between Garcia and Peterson, Garcia said “It’s up to my management. It’s up to the networks. I believe I won the fight because I came to fight. I stalked him down. He landed some good punches. I just feel he didn’t come to fight. He came to fight at the end. I feel if you want to win the fight you have to show come aggressiveness and land some good punches.”

Someone needs to sit Garcia down and break the news to him that there were too sides of the fight. There was the first part of the fight where Peterson used his boxing skills to elude Garcia and make him miss with his punches, but there was a second side of the fight in which Peterson completely took over and was battering Garcia like no tomorrow. There’s really no comparison to what Peterson did to Garcia compared to what Garcia did to Peterson.

When Garcia was winning rounds earlier in the fight, he was just barely nicking them due to Peterson moving a lot. Garcia wasn’t landing a lot of shots, he wasn’t marking Peterson up, and he wasn’t causing Peterson to look worried. When Peterson took over the fight, he was landing almost at will with his shots, and he had Garcia’s skin bruising up badly around his right eye. He also had Garcia backing up and looking incredibly worried. It doesn’t what happened in the early part of the fight when Peterson was focusing on his boxing skills. What matters is that Peterson took over the fight in the second half and finished looking like the winner, not the loser.

“I thought Peterson was running a lot,” said Angel Garcia. “He was saving his energy for the last quarter of the fight. Danny has a great chin. We got hit a lot, some good shots, but I don’t know what that judge was thinking when he had a draw.”

The judge that scores the fight a draw saw that Peterson won at least four out of his last five rounds. Peterson also appeared to win at least two of the first seven rounds. Garcia didn’t win all of the first seven rounds. Peterson definitely won two of the first seven. The real question is why the other two judges didn’t score four out of the last five rounds for Peterson because there were pretty one-sided rounds. Peterson gave away the 10th by moving too much, but he dominated rounds 8, 9, 11 and 12. Scoring the fight a draw was a reasonable thing to expect. I personally had Peterson winning three out of the first seven rounds, and then four of the last five. I had him winning. Garcia is obviously very lucky to escape with a win, but I don’t think he deserves it, not for a second.

Peterson says he wants a rematch with Garcia, but that’s going to be up to their manager Al Haymon, and to NBC. If the ratings are strong, then NBC will let Haymon know that they would like to see the two fighters back in with each other. But I do think that Haymon is going to take Garcia in another direction by moving him up to the welterweight division and look to put him in with someone beatable for his next two fights. We’re probably going to see Garcia matched up against guys like Jo Jo Dan and maybe Chris Algieri if he doesn’t face Amir Khan next.



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