By Allan Fox: After winning a very, very questionable 12 round majority decision on Saturday night against IBF junior welterweight champ Lamont Peterson (33-3-1, 17 KOs) at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (30-0, 17 KOs) appeared to say “I lost” when the two fighters congratulated each other after the scores were ready.

Garcia was given the victory by the scores 114-114, 115-113 and 115-113. The fight result didn’t sit too well with the fans though as lot of boxing fans booed the decision, and clearly felt that Peterson had done more than enough to win narrow decision.

In looking and listening to the Vine video and audio, it does appear that Garcia is admitting that he lost the fight. Who should know more than Garcia in whether he won the fight or not. If he admits that he lost the fight then you have to agree with him that he came up short.

The court of public opinion seems to have Peterson winning the fight judging by the crowd’s booing of Garcia at the Barclays Center. You can also look at the internet boxing forums. It’s overwhelmingly in Peterson’s favor with boxing fans thinking that he won the fight.

If Peterson didn’t deserve a victory then he at least fought well enough to deserve a draw out of the fight rather than a loss.

The reason why fans are siding with Peterson in the fight is due to him finishing so strong in the second half of the fight. He appeared to sweep the last six rounds with his aggressive and high pressure fighting style. Peterson also fought well enough to win at least three out of the first six rounds with the way he was making Garcia miss with his shots again and again.

Garcia had been hoping that the Peterson fight would be his big opportunity to win over a lot of new boxing fans, as the fight was televised on NBC on Premier Boxing Champions. The fight was no doubt seen by a lot of casual fans who don’t normally watch boxing. This performance from Garcia was obviously not the kind of fight that he was hoping to show fans.

Garcia got the better of Peterson in the early going. Peterson started to come alive in the 6th, and from that point on he took the fight to Garcia and punished him with head and body shots. Garcia’s face started to show a lot of bruising by the 8th round from Peterson’s punishing shots, and it got worse as the fight wore on.

Once he decided that he was going to walk Garcia down and bang with him, Peterson showed that he could beat Garcia at his own game by slugging with him in the last half of the fight. It’s unfortunate that Peterson didn’t start earlier because he let Garcia win many of the rounds uncontested. Peterson’s normal game is to talk his opponents down and work them over with body shots at close range. The only fights where he got away from this were against Victor Ortiz and Lucas Matthysse. Peterson is a much better fighter when he’s going forward rather than backwards or laterally around the ring. He obviously needs to stick with his aggressive style of fighting for better or worse. It’s the only style he can win with. He’s not going to win fights by boxing his opponents like he did did in the first five rounds against Garcia. For Peterson to win he has to come at them and slug like he always does.

There clearly needs to be a rematch between Garcia and Peterson so that the controversy of this fight can be cleared up. Whether that actually happens will be up to Garcia and his adviser Al Haymon. If they want the rematch then it’ll definitely happen because Peterson will likely want to face Garcia again. However, Haymon and Garcia might not want to take chances by facing Peterson again. If they can get a bigger money fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr, then it’s obvious that they’ll take that fight rather than getting back in the ring with Peterson a second time. But the fight against Peterson showed pretty clearly that Garcia isn’t cut out for the welterweight division. Had he been in the ring with someone like Kell Brook, Marcos Maidana or Keith Thurman tonight, I think Garcia would have been walked down and knocked out by them. They’re arguably better punchers than Garcia and they do a better job of standing in the pocket and slugging without breaking down the way Garcia quickly was under the shots from Peterson. Garcia wilted quickly from Peterson’s shots in the 2nd half. You can only imagine what would have happened to Garcia if he had been in with bigger punchers than Peterson for a full 12 round fight.

Peterson may lost the fight to Garcia tonight, but he created a blue print in how to beat him by coming straight at him and looking to take his head off. We saw Kendall Holt and Mauricio Herrera fight this way against Garcia and they had a lot of success. The same with Zab Judah. You’ve come to come at Garcia if you want to beat him. Garcia clearly doesn’t do well when his opponent is throwing a lot of hard shots at him and keeping him busy trying to defend against the shots. Garcia obviously doesn’t like to get hit, so he backs off.