(Photo Credit: Amanda Kwok / SHOWTIME) By Dan Ambrose: It was clear going into WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia’s fight last Saturday night that he had a tremendous mismatch on his hands with little unranked lightweight Rod Salka (19-4, 3 KOs), but Garcia still couldn’t resist gloating about the victory after having beaten the over-matched fighter in the 2nd round at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Garcia hurt Salka with a right hand early in the 2nd round after having pounded him at will in the 1st. Garcia then dropped Salka hard with a fight hand. He later in the same round knocked him out cold with a left hook to the head. Salka’s trainer was trying to get the referee’s attention to have the fight stopped moments before Garcia nailed Salka with the huge left hook knockout blow to the head, but the referee didn’t see him.
In an interview with Showtime’s Jim Gray after the fight, Garcia said “I came here to purge. “I told everybody tonight was going to be the ‘Danny Garcia Show.’ No matter who I fought tonight, they were going to get beat. I was going to purge. I was out to kill. I didn’t think this was going to be an easy fight. I thought he’d try to box me. But it is not about the opponent. When I am at my best I can beat anybody and I already proved that.”
Garcia is getting a little a little delusional here when he talks about how he would have beaten anybody “no matter who I fought.” Let’s be clear about this. Salka was a 50-1 underdog. He was a little guy dug up by Garcia’s adviser Al Haymon to make him look good after he got what many boxing fans felt was a gift decision in his last fight against Mauricio Herrera. In a sign that he may have some doubts about Garcia’s ability, Haymon didn’t put him back in with Herrera. He put him in with an unranked lightweight.
That tells you a couple of things. One, he must have felt that Garcia needed a confidence booster after that fight, as he matched Garcia like he’d lost the Herrera fight. Two, it looks like he’s trying to build Garcia up for a bigger fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr for 2015. That fight has got to happen next year because Mayweather Jr likely won’t stick around for much longer. His contract with Showtime expires next year and he may retire.
“I leave it up to Al Haymon, but if he [Peterson] wants it,” Garcia said about a fight against IBF light welterweight champion Lamont Peterson. “I’ll give it to him. I show up fight night and sometimes I have good nights or bad nights, but I always find a way to win.”
Don’t count on Haymon matching Garcia up with Peterson. I don’t believe that’s the reason why he had them both on the same card last night in mismatches. The mismatches were just normal matchmaking and Showtime made the mistake of agreeing to Haymon’s fights instead of putting a stop sign in front of him when he made these mismatches. Garcia and Peterson are likely to continue to travel in different paths, because putting Garcia in with Peterson would be a risky move and could potentially spoil the Mayweather payday bout for Garcia in the future.
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