Danny Garcia vs. Samuel Vargas – Results

By Boxing News - 11/12/2016 - Comments

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By Dan Ambrose: WBC welterweight champion Danny “Swift” Garcia (33-0, 19 KOs) took care of business in stopping a badly over-matched tune-up opponent Samuel Vargas (25-3-1, 13 KOs) in the 7th round on Saturday night in their fight on Premier Boxing Champions on Spike from the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The fight was halted at 2:17 of round 7 after Garcia hurt the 27-year-old Vargas after trapping him against the ropes. Vargas was hurt, and that forced referee Gary Rosado to step in and halt the fight.

(Photo credit: Ryan Hafey/Premier Boxing Champions)

After the contest, Garcia and WBA welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman had words in talking trash to each other to help hype their unification match on March 4. That’s a good fight that’s coming up, and it should be interesting to see. Garcia, 28, just needed to get tonight’s tune-up fight out of the way to help setup the Thurman fight.

Garcia’s management didn’t want to match him against a tough opponent, which makes sense, because he didn’t look good in his last fight in beating Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero last January. Garcia looked vulnerable in that fight, but still better than Guerrero, which isn’t saying much unfortunately.

Earlier in the fight, Garcia dropped Vargas with a right hand to the head late in the 2nd round.

Vargas didn’t have the punching power to bother Garcia in this fight, although he did land a fair amount of punches.

Garcia landed heavy left hooks and right hands in each round, but Vargas was able to take them without going down with the exception of the knockdown in the 2nd. Garcia’s power looked good, but he looked small for the weight class and his defense was bascially his offense. Against a bigger welterweight that could actually punch, Garcia would likely be in a world of hurt. He would have to take shots coming back at him, and he just looks too small for the weight class. Garcia has thus far only fought weaker and smaller welterweights since moving up to the division two years ago. Garcia’s wins have come against Rod Salka, Paulie Malignaggi, Lamont Peterson, Robert Guerrero and Samuel Vargas. Those are not top level welterweights. Those are are fringe level fighters other than Salka, who was fighting at lightweight when he was pulled up to welterweight to fight Garcia.

Some boxing fans will take note that it took Garcia three more rounds to knockout Vargas than it did unbeaten Errol Spence Jr. (21-0, 19 KOs), who destroyed him in four rounds last year. Garcia was trying to get the knockout, but he didn’t have the power, size or the body punching ability that Spence had when he made easy work of Vargas. Garcia might want to make sure that his manager Al Haymon keeps him away from Spence, because that would be an even worse match-up for him than Keith Thurman.

I don’t see it ending well for Garcia against Thurman. He’s too small, and he’s going to get battered by “One Time” in that fight. The good news is it will help remove a weak champion, and put a good fighter holding two of the belts. Thurman and Spence will be able to fight in a unification match after Spence beats Kell Brook for the IBF title later on in 2017 if their adviser Al Haymon lets the fight take place.

Other results on the card:

In other showcase fight on card, #7 IBF junior middleweight contender Jarrett Hurd (19-0, 13 KOs) made easy work of former welterweight world title challenger Jo Joe San (35-4, 18 KOs) in stopping him in the 6th round. Hurd had way too much size and power for the light hitting Dan. It wasn’t a fair fight from the moment it was signed. The one-sided beating was stopped in the 6th. Referee Benji Esteves Jr. stopped the fight at 1:06 of the round.

It’s unclear why Hurd is fighting welterweights. You can’t learn anything about Hurd if he’s going to be fighting light punchers from the 147lb division. If they’re going to match him against welterweights, then they should throw him in the ring with Errol Spence Jr. to see if Hurd is any good. Putting him in with Jo Jo Dan wasn’t even fair. Hurd didn’t look that great when comparing him to the better fighters in the 154lb division like the Charlo brothers, Erislandy Lara, Demetrius Andrade and Julian Williams. Hopefully, Hurd isn’t going to carve out a career pulling welterweights up to 154 for him to fight them, because he needs to mvoe down in weight if he wants to fight them. I don’t see Hurd as having the talent to go anywhere at 154 unfortunately.

Former World Boxing Association super featherweight champion Javier Fortuna (31-1-1, 22 KOs) survived a 1st round scare after getting dropped by Omar Douglas (17-1, 12 KOs). Fortunate got up off the canvas to come back to defeat Douglas by a competitive 10 round unanimous decision.

The final judges’ scores were 96-93, 96-93 and 95-94. The fight wasn’t a good sign for Fortuna that he’s going to be able to come back from his loss to Jason Sosa in his last fight to recapture his WBA title last June by an 11th round knockout. Douglas is a good fighter, but he’s not in the same league as Sosa. The fact that Fortuna struggled to win tonight doesn’t bode well for his future.