By Dan Ambrose: Former IBF welterweight champion Shawn Porter (24-1, 15 KOs) will be fighting for the first time since losing his title against Kell Brook in 2014. Porter will be facing 34-year-old Roberto Garcia (36-3, 23 KOs) in a scheduled 10 round bout at a venue still to be determined.
Porter needs a win here to keep himself alive for a world title shot. He’s still ranked high despite losing his International Boxing Federation title so he’s got to make sure that he doesn’t get beaten here.
This fight could prove to be a very difficult one for Porter because he doesn’t have the size or the boxing ability to stay on the outside and out-box the hard hitting Garcia. This means that Porter is going to need to get inside the trenches and beat Garcia by slugging it out with him.
Porter will still likely win the fight because he’s got a better natural pedigree than Garcia, but he’s likely going to take a lot of punishment in the process unless he can get Garcia out of there with something big.
Garcia has a good chin, so this could prove to be a difficult task in trying to KO him. Porter will need to stay on top of Garcia and throw a lot of punches to keep him too busy defending to get his own offense in gear.
Before losing to Brook in a close fight, Porter had been on an excellent run with wins over Paulie Malignaggi and Devon Alexander. After those victories, they were talking about a potential fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr in the future. The loss to Brook ruined any chance Porter ever had in getting a shot against Mayweather.
Garcia has an eight fight winning streak since losing a 10 round decision to Antonio Margarito five years ago in 2010. That was a fight in which Margarito surprisingly out-boxed Garcia with ease rather than slugging with him. In Garcia’s last three fights, he’s beaten Breidis Prescott, Victor Cayo and Norberto Gonzalez. Besides his loss to Margarito, Garcia has defeats to Ian Mackillop and Calvin Odom.
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