Thurman to Danny Garcia: Enjoy your last cherry of 2016

By Boxing News - 10/13/2016 - Comments

Keith Thurman

By Dan Ambrose: WBA World welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman decided to get in a little dig at WBC 147lb champion Danny Garcia on Wednesday after learning that he’s going to be facing little known Samuel Vargas in his next fight on November 12. Garcia’s fight against Vargas isn’t going to be a title defense despite the fact that Garcia still defended his World Boxing Council 147lb title since winning the belt last January against Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero.

It looks like the WBC is going to allow Garcia more time before he eventually is required to defend his WBC belt. Thurman and Garcia are expected to face each other in early 2017 in a unification fight. However, if Garcia isn’t going to defend his title before that time, then it begs the question of why the WBC is allowing Garcia to hold onto his title with their organization.

If Garcia isn’t going to defend his WBC title during a 12 month period, then why is the WBC keeping him as their belt holder? Garcia isn’t injured, so he should be defending his title, and not taking non-title tune-up fights against guys like Samuel Vargas, who isn’t ranked in the WBC’s top 15.

“Enjoy your last cherry of the year … I’ll be waiting to take that green belt in 2017! #OneTime #KOs4Life #2Belts,” said Thurman on his Twitter.

Thurman doesn’t have much room to talk. With the exception of his recent title defense against Shawn Porter, Thurman hasn’t been facing high quality opposition either. His manager Al Haymon hasn’t put him in with dangerous fighters like Errol Spence Jr.

Look at Thurman’s last 10 opponents: Shawn Porter, Luis Collazo, Robert Guerrero, Leonard Bundu, Julio Diaz, Jesus Soto Karass, Diego Chaves, Jan Zaveck, Carlos Quintana and Orlando Lora. Thurman is almost as bad as Garcia when it comes to the guys he’s facing.

It’ll be good when Garcia and Thurman face each other, because it’ll at least remove one champion, and perhaps make it more interesting. However, it still might not change anything. If the winner of the Thurman vs. Garcia fight continues to mostly face lesser welterweights, then the boxing fans aren’t going to come out ahead.

Thurman and Garcia are good fighters, but they’re not consistently facing high level opposition. The last time Garcia fought a really good fighter was in 2013 when he beat Lucas Matthysse. Garcia has been coasting ever since with fights against Rod Salka, Paulie Malignaggi, Robert Guerrero, Lamont Peterson and Mauricio Herrera. Even before Garcia fought Matthysse, he was fighting a lot of lesser fighters like past his best Zab Judah and Erik Morales. These were not the prime versions of these fighters.

If the winner of the Garcia-Thurman fight starts taking on the better contenders in the welterweight division, then the boxing world will be better for it. I personally don’t think that’s going to happen. I believe it’s going to be the status quo with them continuing to take lesser opponents for their fights on Premier Boxing Champions. Haymon has a lot of good fighters. It would be nice if he started matching them against each other in competitive fights rather than having them fight over-matched opponents like Samuel Vargas.