Lamont Peterson: I’m almost guaranteeing the win over Danny Garcia, expecting a big victory

By Boxing News - 04/09/2015 - Comments

peterson34343By Dan Ambrose: IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson (33-2-1, 17 KOs) is quite confident of victory on Saturday night against WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (29-0, 17 KOs) despite the fact that the 27-year-old Garcia is considered the favorite to win the fight when the two of them start trading bombs at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Peterson, 31, has no worries about Garcia being seen as the No.1 fighter in the 140 pound division, and having beaten the No.2 guy Lucas Matthysse two year ago in their fight in September 2013.

Peterson sees Garcia’s win over Matthysse as meaningless because Garcia previously struggled to defeat Kendall Holt in 2011, and that’s a fighter who Peterson stopped in the 8th round in their fight in 2013. Holt hasn’t fought since.

With Garcia, you can’t really tell which fighter you’re going to get. He sometimes looks good against guys like Amir Khan and Rod Salka, but then he turns around and looks poor against fighters like Mauricio Herrera and Zab Judah. Garcia is far from invincible and he arguably has already been beaten by Herrera in a fight that took place in Garcia’s parent’s home country of Puerto Rico. It was such a bad decision that even the fans at ringside booed the results. It was supposed to be a showcase fight for Garcia and it turned out to be a disaster.

“I’m almost guaranteeing the win. I’m expecting a big victory Saturday night,” Peterson said via Fighthype.com. “This is just another fight for me. People talk about him beating Matthysse and Matthysse beating me, but anyone who knows about boxing knows that doesn’t mean anything. Come Saturday night I will prove to everyone that I’m a better fighter than Danny Garcia.”

Peterson was knocked out in the third round by Lucas Matthysse in 2013. The same year, Garcia defeated Matthysse in a clinch-filled fight filled with tons of low blows by Garcia. It was an ugly to watch fight due to all the low blows and holding that Garcia did. It was pretty much even for the first six rounds, but then Matthysse suffered an eye injury and this enabled Garcia to take over the fight. Matthysse landed the harder shots, but he had no answer for Garcia’s jabs, movement, holding and low blows. It was a dirty fight.

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“I’m not trying to prove anyone wrong, but this fight is important to me and I want to win it. I want to be the top guy and that means beating the top guy,” Peterson said. “Angel Garcia has his opinion on this fight, and I respect it. He can go on record and say anything he wants, but if he says Danny Garcia is stronger than me, I’ll tell you that’s a lie.”

Garcia is a better puncher when it comes to throwing head shots, but Peterson is the far better body puncher of the two. However, for Peterson to be able to land body shots, he’s going to need to be able to take Garcia’s left hooks and right hands. Garcia goes left hook happy when he fights, and unless you’re good at neutralizing it like Judah did, Garcia will look to land that shot all day long.
“We’re not worried about Danny’s power,” Peterson said. “A lot of people have asked me about that but I’m not worried. Danny Garcia had a split decision with Kendall Holt, who I knocked out. No one seems to mention that.”

Peterson needs to be worried about Garcia’s punching power because if he hurts Peterson, he’ll likely finish him off the way Matthysse did. If Peterson is smart, he’ll make sure he keeps his guard up to block Garcia’s attempts to land his left hooks. Judah did a great job of completely taking away Garcia’s left hook. Without him being able to land his hook, Garcia was very average against Judah, and really not much better. It was a close fight with Garcia getting hit a lot. If it was a younger Judah, I think Garcia would have lost the fight. Judah had slowed down enough for Garcia to defeat him.

The Peterson vs. Garcia fight will take place at a catch-weight of 143 pounds. This somehow cheapens the fight because neither fighter will have their world titles on the line.



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