By Dan Ambrose: Former British and Commonwealth 147lb champion Sam Eggington (18-3, 10 KOs) was recently offered a fight against unbeaten WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia (32-0, 18 KOs), but the match couldn’t get made due to the money not being right for the 22-year-old Eggington. Garcia’s manager Al Haymon was said to have contacted Eggington’s promoter Eddie Hearn about making the fight shortly after Eggington had been beaten by Bradley Skeete.
Why Garcia’s management would want to match him against Eggington is the big question, because you could argue that this would be a COMPLETE mismatch. It would be similar to how Danny Garcia was matched against lightweight Rod Salka in 2014 and the past his best Paulie Malignaggi in 2015. It would have been a real mismatch for Garcia to be fighting a guy like Eggington.
“Al Haymon rang me asking for welters,” said Hearn via britishboxers.co.uk. “Sam Eggington was offered Danny Garcia fight, but the money wasn’t right. Sam wanted it, though.”
You have to wonder how much the offer Eggington was getting from Garcia’s manager Haymon for Hearn to turn the fight down. It’s not every day where you see domestic level fighters turning down world title shots. It’s just strange that Eggington was offered a title shot in the first place given that he was recently beaten and he’s not ranked in the top 15 by any of the sanctioning bodies at welterweight at this current time.
Andre Berto, #2 WBC, said recently that light welterweight contender John Molina is the guy that Garcia could be fighting next. It would be a decent fight, but Molina is a 140lb contender. There’s a lot of other fighters that are more deserving of a title shot against Danny Garcia than a light welterweight.
This is pretty sad. Why would Haymon want to match Danny Garcia against a fighter like Eggington? That’s a complete mismatch, and perhaps even worse than the Garcia-Salka and Garcia-Malignaggi fights. Danny Garcia’s match-making has turned extra soft since he beat Lucas Matthysse by a 12 round decision in 2013. At that time, Garcia had gained a lot of boxing fans with impressive performance. The fight made big news, and it was thought that Garcia would continue to take on high caliber opposition to become a big star. Instead, we’ve seen Garcia pulled back from facing quality opposition and put in with a series of soft fights where he clearly was going to win. In Garcia’s last four fights, he’s beaten Mauricio Herrera, Rod Salka, Lamont Peterson, Paulie Malignaggi and Robert Guerrero. The fight against Guerrero was for the vacant WBC welterweight title last January. Garcia won the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision, but it was fairly close. A lot of boxing fans complained about a struggling fighter like Guerrero being the one that Garcia faced for the vacant WBC 147lb title rather than a talented fighter with a solid resume and high rankings like Shawn Porter or Errol Spence Jr.
Either of those two fighters would have likely jumped the chance to fight Garcia for the WBC title, and yet they didn’t get the fight. What was sad about Guerrero fighting Garcia for the WBC welterweight title is the fact that Guerrero had lost two out of his previous four fights with one of his wins being a controversial one against Aaron Martinez last year in June.
Egginton will be fighting next month against 30-year-old former welterweight world title challenger Frankie Gavin on October 22 at the Barclayclad Arena in Birmingham, UK. Gavin will likely win the fight. Gavin was stopped in the 6th round last year in May 2015 by IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook.