By Scott Gilfoid: WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman isn’t going to give newly crowned WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia (32-0, 18 KOs) a break by letting him take a couple of easy bottom feeder voluntary defenses of his WBC title.
Sulaiman said today that Garcia must face his #1 WBC challenger Amir Khan (31-3, 19 KOs) and he must do it by June. That gives the 27-year-old Garcia only five months to get the fight negotiated and over with. If not, I supposed Garcia will be stripped of his WBC strap.
“Amir Khan is the mandatory contender. He is next for Danny Garcia and they must fight by June,” Sulaiman said via ESPN.com.
Garcia should be overjoyed with this news because he beat Khan easily in their fight in 2012 in stopping him in the 4th round. Garcia was getting badly schooled by Khan in the first two rounds of the fight until he caught Khan with a big shot in the 3rd. If Khan hadn’t tried to throw a wide left hook, he likely would have continued to dominate Garcia and either would have stopped him or one a one-sided fight. Khan was so much better than Garcia that it wasn’t even funny. It was like watching Khan’s fight against Paulie Malignaggi. Khan was teeing off on Garcia and his speed was just too much.
Khan made a mistake unfortunately for him by loading up on a left hook and getting nailed by a left hook by Garcia. It was the same mistake Khan made in his 1st round knockout loss to Breidis Prescott. Khan tried to throw a hook and he got nailed. If Khan would just throw straight punches, he probably wouldn’t have lost to Prescott and Garcia.
However, Garcia and his father Angel Garcia have less than enthusiastic at the thought of facing Khan again. They want other fights, bigger fights. You would have to assume that one of the bigger fights the Garcia’s might be interested in is a unification clash against IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook.
Garcia likely has heard the news of Khan getting an offer of $10 million to fight Brook at Wembley Stadium in London, UK, and Garcia probably wants to get in on that good cash. I don’t know if the same deal would apply for a guy like Garcia though. I’m betting the British boxing public doesn’t have a clue who Garcia is unless you’re talking about the hardcore fans. But if Garcia could even get $5 million for a fight against Brook, that’s about $3.5 million more than he’d get for fighting most of the other guys in the division. Garcia got $1.5 million for his fight against Robert Guerrero last Saturday night.
If Garcia wants to steer around a fight against Khan, then it might take a step aside payment to get Khan to move out of the way so that Garcia can fight Brook or whoever. I don’t know if it’ll be worth it for Garcia to swerve the Khan fight unless he can get a big money fight against Brook. Garcia can’t just sit around and wait for the results of the Keith Thurman vs. Shawn Porter fight to take place, because he’ll be waiting too long.
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