By Dan Ambrose: WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (29-0, 17 KOs) is putting a tremendous amount of importance on his catch-weight fight this Saturday night against IBF 147lb belt holder Lamont Peterson (33-2-1, 17 KOs) on NBC Premier Boxing Champions.
Garcia realizes that the fight will be seen by a lot of boxing fans who may not have ever seen him fight before, and he wants to make a good first impression on these fans. This means that Garcia, 27, will need to fight a lot better against Peterson than he did in his fight against Mauricio Herrera last year because a lot of fans still believe that Garcia lost that fight.
This isn’t news to Garcia. He knows that fans think he lost to Herrera, but he doesn’t want to fight him again. He just wants to keep winning regardless. However, Garcia cannot afford another Herrera type fight if he wants to win new fans.
“I got to go out there and do what I always do, I got to dominate,” Garcia said via Fight News.
Unfortunately, Garcia doesn’t always dominate. He didn’t dominate Zab Judah, Herrera, Lucas Matthysse and Erik Morales in his first fight with him. Garcia is winning, but he’s not dominating every time out. He dominated his last opponent little Rod Salka, who came up from the lightweight division to fight Garcia at a catch-weight of 142 pounds. But that was a really strange choice of an opponent for Garcia, because he could have fought guys from the light welterweight, and he could have fought some good welterweights.
Why he wanted to fight a little 2nd tier lightweight like Salka is anyone’s guess. If this was Garcia’s adviser’s idea for him to fight Salka, then Garcia should have vetoed the choice because it was a bad one. Garcia was criticized by a lot of fans for this mismatch, and it wasn’t even a good fight if fans didn’t have a clue who Salka was.
“I got to win the fight, so that way those big fights will be allowed for me,” Garcia said. “It’s very important for me to go out there and look good… and go out there and show the world and NBC Danny Garcia for all the new fans.”
Garcia has talked about wanting to move up to the welterweight division, and he may choose to make that move after he faces Peterson on Saturday in their fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. He’s still not saying for sure if he’ll move up in weight though after the catch-weight fight against Peterson.
The fact that Garcia won’t commit to moving up suggests that he’s got some fear involved with this decision. It’s easy to understand why Garcia might not be excited about moving up in weight because one of the biggest advantages he’s had in fighting at light welterweight was his size advantage.
Garcia is a heavy fighter after rehydrates, and if he moves up in weight to welterweight, he’s not going to be dominate smaller fighters because the guys he’ll be facing will pretty much be the same size as him. The only way Garcia will dominate at 147 is if he bulks up and comes into the welterweight fights at 160 like some welterweights do.
“Yeah, big money. I would love to. That’s what boxing’s about,” Garcia said about moving up in weight to the welterweight division. “That’s every fighter’s dream… it’s to fight on that stage, of course for a lot of money, all the exposure in the world, but it’s one fight at a time. Yeah, it’s a good chance but we’ll see how I feel in the summertime.”
If Garcia doesn’t get off the pot and finally make a decision about moving up in weight to the welterweight division, he could miss out on a big money fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr and Manny Pacquiao. Those fighters aren’t going to stick around the sport forever waiting for Garcia to finally get the nerve to move up in weight to 147. It would be a pity if Garcia took too long in moving up and failed to get a fight against Mayweather and Pacquiao before they retired from boxing. Once those guys are gone, Garcia will have to be content fighting guys like Kell Brook, Keith Thurman, Amir Khan, Tim Bradley, Shawn Porter and Brandon Rios. Those aren’t big names.
Comments are closed.