Danny Garcia’s career: Do the stats lie?

By Robbie Bannatyne - 04/17/2015 - Comments

garcia955By Robbie Bannatyne: ‘There are three types of lies. Lies, damned lies and statistics.’ Although this quote was popularized by Mark Twain, the actual origins of the saying remain unclear.

However, if you watched Danny Garcia’s fight against Lamont Peterson last weekend, it is clear that whoever coined the phrase is on point. Statistics definitely can lie. In the case of Danny Garcia’s career, the statistics are misleading at best and outright lies at worst.

Although Garcia still woke up on Sunday morning as an undefeated, double world champion at 140lb, the harsh reality is that he should have at least one blemish on his boxing record. Whilst the Philadelphia fighter is yet to lose a fight officially, his undefeated record stands in stark contrast to his stock in the boxing world, which has diminished massively over the course of his last three fights.
As the great Bob Marley sang, ‘you can fool some people sometimes time but you can’t fool all the people all the time’. For the boxing fans who refuse to be fooled by the fallacy of Danny Garcia’s undented ring record, they will believe that he is living on borrowed time.

To distil Danny Garcia’s problems into simple terms: his body is too big to make the 10 stone limit but too small to move up to 147lb. He is still a big fish at 140lb, but even so, the fear factor he once had has disappeared, and in the shark infested waters of the welterweight division he would be way down the food chain. If he is struggling to cope with the top fighters at light welterweight, he will be thrown of the cliff if and when he encounters the cream of the crop at 147lb.

His future opponents, whether at 140lb or 147lb, will now be smelling blood and there is no way they will be as bashful as Lamont Peterson was in the 1st half of their bout last Saturday night. It stands to reason that Lamont Peterson could have cruised to a comprehensive point’s win or stoppage victory if only he hadn’t shown Garcia so much respect in the opening 6 rounds.

Regardless of the fact he was bailed out by the judges, the perception of Garcia post-Peterson is that he is ripe for the picking. Fighters who were hitherto intimidated by his reputation will now be tenacious in the face of his fading star. After riding his luck against Mauricio Herrera and Lamont Peterson, Danny Garcia cannot throw his faith in the hands of fortune any longer- he must find another way to regain his luster.

Sure, a few familiar Al Haymon flavored mismatches may restore his shattered confidence in the interim, but it will just delay his inevitable fate of having to face the top fighter who will fancy their chances big time against Garcia.

To be sure, Danny Garcia still has a place at the top table of boxing, with a healthy pile of chips. However, the way he plays his next few hands will have major ramifications for the rest of his career.

There is only so long you can perpetuate the lie and manipulate the facts with misleading statistics. Sooner or later, the truth will be revealed when a top fighter renders Danny Garcia’s undefeated record redundant by removing the judges from the equation and handing him a decisive loss.

I really look forward to reading your comments.

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