Danny Garcia says Spence vs. Porter will be “ugly fight,” wants Canelo

By Boxing News - 07/31/2019 - Comments

Image: Danny Garcia says Spence vs. Porter will be "ugly fight," wants Canelo

By Mark Eisner: Danny Garcia is expected an ugly fight between Errol Spence Jr. and Shawn Porter when the two of them face each other on September 28 on Fox Sports pay-per-view. Garcia says it’s a 50-50 fight, and he feels it’s going to be a back and forth fight where both guys have their moments.

Danny, 31, says he’d like to fight Saul Canelo Alvarez, but he’ll need to bulk up first. Garcia kids that he would need to start eating the Mexican beef to put on some size. Other than Canelo, Garcia says he has unfinished business at 147. You can take that to mean that he wants rematches with Keith Thurman and Porter. He also wants a fight with Manny Pacquiao. Garcia doesn’t mention Spence and Terence Crawford, which is an indication that he’s not interested in those fights right now.

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Garcia (35-2, 21 KOs) lost to Porter last September by a 12 round unanimous decision. In the loss, Garcia was roughed up badly by Porter en route to losing his WBC welterweight title.

IBF welterweight champion Spence (25-0, 21 KOs) and WBC 147 pound champion Porter (30-2-1, 17 KOs) will be meeting in a unification fight. The winner will have two titles, and they’ll be looking to face Manny Pacquiao or Terence Crawford. Although Porter is interested in fighting Garcia again, Spence says his focus is in looking to fight WBA champion Pacquiao or WBO champ Crawford. Spence says once he’s unified the 147 pound division, then he’ll swoop back and look to fight Danny Garcia.

Danny Garcia: Spence vs. Porter is a 50-50 fight

“It’s going to be a 50-50 fight, but I think it’s going to be an ugly fight,” said Danny Garcia to Fighthub about the Spence vs. Porter fight on September 28. “I don’t think their styles match-up to be like a classic fight. Porter has got a rough, rugged style, and his [Spence] style is sort of like that too. It’s going to be an ugly fight, but it’s going to be an entertaining fight. I think it’s going to be a lot of back and forth. It’s going to be a rugged fight, real rugged,” said Garcia.

Spence and Porter and going to be going to war in this fight, and it could come down to which of the two have the best chin. Errol has been hurt before earlier in his career in his fight against Emmanuel Lartei Lartey in 2013. Spence was shaken up pretty badly by Lartey, and he was forced to box him the rest of the way.

Porter, 31, has never been hurt during his career, but he has been out-boxed by Kell Brook and Thurman. There’s a good possibility that Spence will try and win a decision by staying on the outside. It’s hard for any fighter to stay with Porter on the inside, because he roughs them up with head-butts and elbows. Spence probably won’t want to deal with that kind of a fight.

Danny Garcia plans on moving up to 154 soon

“I’ve got to finish business at 147, but I will be at 154 soon,” said Garcia when asked when he plans on moving up to junior middleweight. “Not in the next year, but I’ll be up there.”

The way Garcia is talking, he’s not going to move up to 154 until 2021 at the earliest. Even then, it’s possible that he’ll choose to stay at 147, because there’s no big names at 154 right now.

If Garcia does move up to junior middleweight, he can fight these guys:

  • Jermell Charlo
  • Tony Harrison
  • Jaime Munguia
  • Jarrett Hurd
  • Erickson Lubin
  • Erislandy Lara
  • Julian Williams

Those are tough fights for Garcia, because he’s not very big at 5’8.” Although that’s the same height at Canelo Alvarez, but the Mexican star has a larger frame than Danny. It was an easy transition for Canelo to move up to 160 due to his big frame. Garcia doesn’t have that kind of size, and he’s going to need to bulk up a great deal or him to be able to compete with guys like Canelo. For Garcia, just getting a fight against Canelo might be good enough, because he’ll get a huge payday fighting him.

Canelo Alvarez a fight Danny Garcia wants

“Oh yeah, s–t, I would love that fight too,” said Garcia when asked if he’d be interested in fighting Canelo Alvarez. “I’ve got to gain some weight though. I’m probably 160 right now, but it’s what I walk around with. Canelo walks around about 200 pounds. So I’ve got to get the beef in me; the Mexican beef to beef up,” said Garcia.

Golden Boy Promotions would probably be overjoyed to match Canelo against Danny Garcia if he chose to move up to 160. But for that fight to make sense, Garcia will need to move up to middleweight, and show that he can thrive in that weight class. The last thing Canelo needs is to be perceived as a bully that beats up welterweights. Canelo has already beaten Amir Khan in 2016.

If Garcia moved up to 160, and beat someone like Sergiy Derevyanchenko or Jeff Horn, he would be taken seriously by boxing fans. The fans would subsequently be interested in seeing Garcia and Canelo face each other. Golden Boy were recently interested in matching Canelo against Spence. Given Garcia’s recent losses to Thurman and Porter, Golden Boy might not see it as worthwhile for Canelo to fight him.

Angel Garcia picks Spence over Porter

“I could see probably Spence winning that, yeah,” said trainer Angel Garcia to Fighthub. Porter ain’t all that. Man, listen, they beat Danny, I can’t sugarcoat that, because on record he beat us. On record. But they ain’t really beat Danny, bro. If Danny would’ve been in this condition like we just fought, like that, that’s Danny Garcia. He would smash both of them guys. Porter would’ve been on his ass and Thurman would’ve been on his ass. But that’s okay, we’ll wait for the future. It’s never too late,” said Angel.

Garcia has got to start avenging some of his losses, because it looks bad that he’s not trying to avenge the defeats to Thurman and Porter.