Danny Garcia could face Thurman-Porter winner

By Boxing News - 03/12/2016 - Comments

garcia#11By Dan Ambrose: Showtime vice president of sports Stephen Espinoza says he’s had discussions about the next fight for newly crowned WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia in the summer or fall of this year.

Garcia recently beat Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the vacant WBC welterweight title last January. Espinoza says Danny Garcia will be keeping a close eye on the June 25th fight between WBA welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman and “Showtime” Shawn Porter, and he could potentially fight the winner of that contest in a unification fight.

“We’ve had some discussions about some possible match-ups for him,” Espinoza said of Garcia to Ringtv.com. “I think it’s looking like late summer, early fall and he’s really at the top of the division, so I know, having spoken to his team, I know he’ll be watching very closely the Thurman-Porter result with an eye on maybe taking on the winner of that.”

Garcia, 27, seems to have backed off completely from facing stiff competition since beating Lucas Matthysse in 2013. It’s unclear whether Garcia feels he’s made it to the big time, or he’s lost his desire to take stiff challenges. The Matthysse was a grueling one for Garcia, even though he won.

It was a hard fight for Garcia, and it might have taken away his ambition. Since that fight, Garcia has fought Mauricio Herrera, Rod Salka, Lamont Peterson, Paulie Malignaggi and Robert Guerrero. Those were all safer fights compared to some of the guys that Garcia could have fought like Viktor Postol, Terence Crawford, Porter, Errol Spence Jr., Keith Thurman, Amir Khan or Ruslan Provodnikov.

At this point, I think it’s unlikely that Garcia will face the winner of the Thurman vs. Porter fight. If Garcia’s adviser Al Haymon offers the Thurman-Porter fight to him, then I see Garcia and his father/trainer Angel Garcia turning the fight down cold. I don’t think either of them wants to tangle with the winner – or the loser – of the Thurman-Porter fight. There’s too much of a chance for Garcia to lose the fight.

I see Garcia as a paper champion at 147. He’s better off moving back down to 140 and targeting IBF light welterweight champion Eduard Troyanovsky. He appears to be the weak link among the world champions at 140 right now. Garcia wouldn’t likely want any part of WBC 140lb champion Viktor Postol, because he’s the guy that he was supposed to defend his WBC 140lb title against but chose not to.

Additionally, Garcia probably won’t ever fight WBO 140lb champion Crawford, because he’s with Top Rank, and Haymon rarely does business with them. Garcia has an excuse never to have to face Crawford if he doesn’t want to, and I don’t think he wants to.

We’re probably going to see Garcia face one of these fighters in his first defense of his WBC 147lb title in the summer or fall:

Andre Berto
Lamont Peterson
Omar Figueroa
Konstantin Ponomarev
Ray Robinson
Sammy Vasquez Jr
Charles Manyuchi
Dmitry Mikhaylenko
Cesar Miguel Barrionuevo
Alfonso Gomez
Ionut Dan Ion
Ceferino Rodriguez

These are all pretty much beatable soft jobs that Garcia can defeat without too much danger with the exception of Peterson, who would be a real threat to Garcia.

I would normally say that Berto will likely face Garcia next, but Berto is being talked about as Victor Ortiz’s next opponent for April 30, so that removes him from the equation. It definitely won’t be Errol Spence that Garcia fights because he would likely make easy work of Garcia.

Haymon is probably going to need to match Garcia carefully against one of the beatable contenders from the WBC’s top 15 ranking. If Haymon matches Garcia up against Thurman, Porter or Spence, I see him losing to those fighters. Garcia has already dodged two defeats in his fights against Herrera and Peterson, when he was given controversial decision wins. You can also say that Garcia dodged a loss to Postol by moving up in weight to avoid that fight. Garcia and his unbeaten record need a lot of loving care to keep him in that condition. Garcia isn’t one of those Gennady Golovkin type fighters that you can match against anyone in his division without worry of him losing. He’s someone that has to be carefully matched to keep him from getting beaten, and even then, he’s still vulnerable.



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