(Photo Credit: Hoganphotos/GBP) By Dan Ambrose: WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (26-0, 16 KO’s) has given a pretty big hint in how he plans on fighting WBC interim light welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse (34-2, 32 KO’s) next month on September 14th in their fight at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
Garcia plans on fighting Matthysse defensively just as Zab Judah and Devon Alexander did in beating him. Whether that’ll work at this stage of Matthysse’s career is unclear because he’s a much different fighter now compared to what he was when he fought those two. It’s like night and day.
Garcia said “I fought a lot of guys with power. Trust me, I plan to take away his power, make him miss and make him pay. If he opens up early to get me out of there, trust me, he’s making a big mistake. He tries that and the fights going to be over quickly.”
It already sounds like Garcia isn’t going to be disciplined with his game plan for this fight. If his idea is to take Matthysse’s power away from him by dodging his punches, then it’s probably not a smart move on Garcia’s part to abandon that early in the fight when Matthysse starts to slug. That sounds pretty stupid. I’m not sure if Garcia has thought that one through clearly.
Not only that, but Danny has never been a good defensive fighter, ever. If you look at his fights against Erik Morales, Kendall Holt, Amir Khan and Zab Judah, you’ll see that none of them had problems landing their shots. Danny won those fights based on his offense, but he didn’t impress against Holt, Judah or in his first fight with Morales. Those were unimpressive performances from Danny, because he got hit a lot in all of them.
Danny needs to forget all about trying to beat Matthysse by out-boxing him, because that’s not going to happen. If Danny tries that, he’ll end up like Mike Dallas and Lamont Peterson by getting knocked out early. Fighting defensively against Matthysse gets you knocked out.
The only way Danny has any chance of winning this fight is if he can slug with Matthysse right off the bat, and pray that he can get him out early before he gets a full head of steam. Garcia will not be able to take Matthysse’s power shots for 12 rounds, now way.
Garcia’s nose will break, his eyes will cut, and he’ll be hit with too many concussive shots to the head. That’s why Garcia has to go all out from the 1st round, and look to take Matthysse out quickly before he’s had a chance to warm up.
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