Danny Garcia with tough task against Lucas Matthysse

By Boxing News - 08/25/2013 - Comments

matthysse22By Allan Fox: On paper the September 14th fight between WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (26-0, 16 KO’s) and WBC interim light welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse (34-2, 32 KO’s) is supposed to be a competitive match-up, but in reality this fight could be over very quickly if Garcia tries to trade shots with the Argentinian Matthysse at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

We just saw Garcia get stunned in his last fight against Zab Judah by some of his power shots, and Garcia barely won that fight. Matthysse has a loss against Judah, but only a really small minority of fans actually believes that Matthysse lost that fight. If you watch how Mattthysse did against Judah and compare it to how Garcia did against Judah, it’s pretty clear that Matthysse did better than Garcia. Matthysse has improved a lot since that time, and he’s a much dangerous fighter than when he suffered his controversial loss in that fight.

Garcia is a one-armed fighter, and he’s going to have to find some power in his right hand before September 14th or he’s going to be fighting Matthysse at a huge disadvantage. Matthysse has power in both hands, and he’s been knocking everyone out since his controversial loss to another fighter Devon Alexander in 2011. Garcia will have to raise his game considerably for him to have a chance in this fight, because the Garcia that beat Judah, Erik Morales and Amir Khan probably has no chance against a pure slugger like Matthysse.

The problem that Garcia has is that Matthysse does everything that he can do but a lot better. Matthysse is like a superior version of Garcia, and that doesn’t bode well for Garcia. It’s perhaps for a reason that he put this fight off with Matthysse so long. There has to be some serious self-doubt in Garcia’s mind that he can win this fight.

It might be that Garcia’s only chance of winning the fight is to box and move the entire fight, and hope to win a close decision. Judah and Alexander used a lot of movement and holding against Matthysse. They both appeared to lose the fight, but the judges were impressed with their fighting styles enough to give them the win. Perhaps Garcia could win this way as well. It won’t be crowd-pleasing but it might be the only way that Garcia can win. He doesn’t hit as hard as Matthysse, and he’ll be trying to slow him down with just a left hook in his limited arsenal. I don’t think that’s going to be enough to get the job done.



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