By Eric Baldwin: WBA World welterweight champion Keith “One Time” Thurman (28-0, 22 KOs) pounded out a 12 round split decision win against WBC 147 pound champion Danny “Swift” Garcia (33-1, 19 KOs) on Saturday night to become the unified champion on Showtime Championship Boxing on CBS at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
(Photo credit: Amanda Westcott/SHOWTIME)
Fighting in front of a large crowd of 16,500, Thurman won the fight by the scores of 116-112, 115-113, and 115-113 for Garcia. Boxing News 24 scored the fight 116-112 for Thurman. In fairness to the judge that scored it 115-113 for Garcia, there were a lot of close rounds in the fight that could have gone the other way. Where Thurman was making a mistake was he let Garcia control large portions of rounds. He would then come on late to in the last 15 seconds to try and steal the rounds. Garcia never seemed to catch on to Thurman’s late surges in the rounds, as he seemed to always let him get the better of him in the final seconds.
The fight would have been much more one-sided if Thurman hadn’t backed off and started using a lot of movement from round 10 to 12. The pro-Garcia crowd loudly booed Thurman’s movement, as they wanted to see action rather than his ‘circle fighting.’
Garcia, 28, fought the wrong game plan from the very start choosing to wait on Thurman to come forward rather than pressuring him. This strategy by Garcia played into Thurman’s hands, as he had the much faster hand speed. Thurman was able to use his faster hands to land a lot of pot shots repeatedly in rounds 1-9. It wasn’t until the 10th round that Garcia began to apply a lot of pressure. Garcia landed some nice body shots in the final three rounds to make the scores close.
Thurman started the fight attacking Garcia in round 1. Few boxing fans expected Thurman to go on the attack, but it looked like he wanted to try and catch the attention of Garcia. It worked, because Garcia looked slightly shocked at the fast start for Thurman. In the opening round alone, Thurman landed some monstrous power shots that would have knocked out many welterweights in the division. Garcia wasn’t holding his left hand high enough to block the straight right hands that Thurman kept hitting him with. There was a flurry of big power shots from Thurman in the last minute of the round had Garcia looking overwhelmed. Garcia wasn’t fast enough to deal with Thurman’s hand speed, and he wasn’t pressing the fight the way he needed to. Shawn Porter had shown last June how to give Thurman problems by pressuring him. Instead of following that blue print, Garcia followed the blueprint of the many fighters that Thurman had beaten in his career by being stationary.
The fight was supposed to have been a 50-50 affair in the minds of the boxing public, but it turned out to be a fairly one-sided win for Thurman. The only reason the fight was close was because Thurman backed off in the championship rounds to coast to victory.
Thurman’s best round of the fight was in the 1st round, as he landed some really nice shots that seemed to ring his bell. Garcia wasn’t ready the way he needed to be for Thurman’s fast attack. The thing is, Thurman had told the boxing media that he was going to go after Garcia in the 1st round hard by looking to nail him with left hooks. Sure enough, that’s exactly what Thurman did tonight. He went after Garcia in a big way looking to knock him out.
Garcia landed some really big counter shots in the 2nd round, as he timed Thurman perfectly to nail him with left hooks. Thurman took the shots well He then bided his time until the last 20 seconds of the round, and opened up with blistering fast combinations that caught Garcia flush. Garcia was too slow to track the incoming fire from Thurman, and he had to eat the punches.
“I thought I out-boxed him,” said Thurman after the fight. “This is One Time, and still the champion. One Time became Two Time.”
Thurman looked very good in switching from slugging to boxing Garcia in the last four rounds of the fight. The crowd didn’t like it, but you can understand why Thurman didn’t want to take chances because he was ahead on the scorecards. He obviously knew that he was ahead and he was willing to box the last quarter of the fight rather than letting Garcia have a chance of landing a big power shot. Garcia was swinging for the fences in the last part of the fight. He obviously knew that he was behind in the fight.
“I came up short tonight. I gave it my all,” said Garcia after the fight. I thought I won the fight. I thought I pushed the fight like a true champion.“
In round 3, Garcia bent forward while trying to duck some of Thurman’s big punches. However, Garcia was defenseless when he was bent over, and Thurman took full advantage of it by nailing him with five free shots to the sides of his waist. It was luck for Garcia that he wasn’t hurt.
The fans started to boo the lack of action beginning in round 5, as Thurman started to circle the ring more, and avoid some of Garcia’s shots. In the previous round, Garcia had hit Thurman with a hard body shot that got his attention. It might have made him more cautious for the 5th round to avoid getting hit with additional big power shots. There wasn’t much action in round 5, as both guys looked like they weren’t willing to take any risks.
In the 6th and 7th rounds, Garcia fought better than Thurman and looked like he did enough to win the round. However, in both rounds, Thurman came on strong in the last seconds in an effort to steal the rounds.
Garcia put more focus on throwing body shots in rounds 8-10 in following the instructions of his father/trainer Angel Garcia. He wanted Garcia to attack Thurman’s body because he felt that he was still vulnerable to getting hurt with those punches. The problem with Garcia looking to land body shots is it left him vulnerable to Thurman’s fast punches. Garcia kept getting countered when he was throwing to the body. This late in the fight, Garcia might have been better off focusing his punches to the head of Thurman.
Garcia needs to look at the replay of the fight so that he can see where he went wrong by not pressuring Thurman. In looking at Thurman’s 28 fights in the pro ranks, the one thing that he has problems with is when he’s pressured hard. Garcia didn’t learn from watching Thurman’s past fights because he did not put enough pressure on him to get the victory.
The victory for Thurman earns him the right to be called the best fighter in the welterweight division. He’s now the unified champion in the 147lb division in holding 2 of the 4 titles.
If Thurman wants to take it a step further to cement himself as the best fighter in the welterweight division, he can take on the winner of the May 20 fight between IBF champion Kell Brook and Errol Spence Jr. Both fighters had expressed interest in fighting the winner of the Thurman-Garcia fight. Now that Thurman has won the belt, it’s his option to take on the Brook-Spence fight if he wants to. It might be a lot tougher for Thurman to defeat Spence than it was Garcia. Spence is bigger fighter with better punching power than Garcia, and he’s a pressure fighter who always comes forward. Spence wouldn’t back off and let Thurman control the fight the way that Garcia was doing tonight. That was a mistake on Garcia’s part.
Other boxing results on tonight’s Thurman-Garcia card:
Andrzej Fonfara TKO 10 Chad Dawson
Heather Hardy UD 8 Edina Kiss
Erickson Lubin TKO 4 Jorge Cota