Danny Garcia not interested in Khan or Guerrero rematches

By Boxing News - 01/24/2016 - Comments

Image: Danny Garcia not interested in Khan or Guerrero rematchesBy Scott Gilfoid: Newly crowned WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia (32-0, 18 KOs) made it clear after his 12 round unanimous decision win over Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (33-4-1, 18 KOs) last night that he doesn’t want and he doesn’t he has to fight #1 WBC Amir Khan, because he beat him in the past.

According to Garcia, he wants to move on to bigger and better things rather than fight Khan or even Guerrero again. Whether Garcia will be able to skip past Khan to fight the better fighters remains to be seen.

The World Boxing Council and Al Haymon will be the one that decides if Garcia can pick and choose his opponents. Hopefully, we wouldn’t see Garcia going back to fighting the likes of Rod Salka and Paulie Malignaggi. His idea of “bigger and better” isn’t necessarily something that the boxing fans would agree with. More like bigger and better record-padding fodder fights.

“I don’t have to fight nobody,” Garcia said when told that he’s required to fight Khan in his next fight because of him being his #1 WBC contender. “He’s been inactive for a while now. I don’t think that’s a good idea to fight a return fight when you’ve been inactive for a year. But as I said once, I’ve beat him once and I can beat him again. I’m not going to say I want a rematch because I beat him [Guerrero] clean. I feel like I beat him clean and there’s no need for me to take a step back in my career. I just want to go on to bigger and better things,” Garcia said.

YouTube video

So there it is. Garcia wants nothing to do with Guerrero or Khan. It’s too bad for Khan if the WBC lets Garcia skate around the fight, because he was passed over by the WBC when they allowed #6 WBC Guerrero to fight Garcia instead of him.

In hindsight, what the WBC should have done was make the Garcia-Guerrero fight be for the interim WBC title and the winner of the fight would fight #1 WBC Khan for the vacant WBC belt. Instead of doing that, the WBC made the winner of the Garcia vs. Guerrero fight look illegitimate in the eyes of fans because it didn’t involve the two highest ranking contenders. The fight also arguably didn’t involve the two best contenders in the WBC’s own rankings. I rate Khan, Errol Spence and Shawn Porter as being better fighters than Garcia and Guerrero. I’m just saying.

“Bigger things come in the future,” said Garcia’s trainer/father Angel Garcia. “Khan, no. Guerrero, no. Who else? [Mauricio] Herrera, no.”

Angel doesn’t have a say so about who Garcia fights next unless the WBC is going to give Garcia the ability to take voluntary defenses rather than forcing him to fight Khan or the Sammy Vasquez.

“I think I’ll get that chance for that rematch, and also get payback here,” Khan said about wanting to fight Danny Garcia next to thaboxingvoice. “It’s mandatory. He [Garcia] has to take it. I think a fight against Garcia would be a fight proving I’m the best. Hopefully, I’m going to get that fight with Garcia. That’s what we want. I’m not worried. I’ll let my adviser Al Haymon take over and make that fight happen for me,” Khan said.

YouTube video

I’d be surprised if Haymon chooses to steer Garcia around Khan, because a move like that might alienate Khan. If this were another fighter that Haymon wasn’t advising, then I don’t think it would be a big deal to have Garcia steered around that fight. We saw that happen with the Top Rank promoted Viktor Postol seemingly avoided by Garcia recently. But with Khan, he’s with Haymon and it obviously wouldn’t make Khan happy if Haymon had Garcia duck the Khan fight in order to put him back with another soft opponent so that he could milk his new WBC title and get easy money without risk. I don’t think Garcia is all that interested in taking hard fights. I think he’s more interested in taking the path of least resistance with his career. He’s only had that one fight with Lucas Matthysse that you could call a 50-50 fight. All the other fights Garcia was involved with, he was the favorite. Even in the Lamont Peterson fight, Garcia was the favorite.



Comments are closed.