Danny Garcia WARNS Spence and Pacquiao: “My style is dangerous for both”

By Boxing News - 01/16/2020 - Comments

By Sean Jones: Danny Garcia put Errol Spence Jr. and Manny Pacquiao on notice this week in telling them both that his fighting style will be “DANGEROUS” for either of them. Garcia’s powerful left hand, and his counter-punching ability is what he’s talking about. He believes if he catches Spence and Pacquiao with one of his shots, he gives them problems like he did with Amir Khan.

Pacquiao is vulnerable in that he’s 41, and nearing the end of his career. In Spence’s case, he’s coming off of a terrible car crash, and we don’t know what he has left after that experience. It’s easy for Danny to brag about how he’s dangerous to Pacquiao and Spence, but he’s not going to get much credit if he beats them.

Garcia (35-2, 21 KOs) is expected to fight one of those two fighters in 2018, as long as he wins his next fight against Ivan Redkach (23-4-1, 18 KOs) on January 25 in a WBC welterweight title eliminator at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

If Spence stays out of action for a prolonged period of time, Garcia has a great chance of picking up his WBC 147-lb title.

The Redkach fight is a warm-up one for Garcia to keep him busy until he faces Spence or Pacquiao. The former two division world champion Garcia was supposed to be challenging Spence (26-0, 21 KOs) for his IBF & WBC welterweight titles on January 25, but Errol’s car crash on October 10 in Dallas spoiled those plans.

So instead of facing Spence on Fox Sports pay-per-view, Garcia, 31, finds himself taking on the always tough Redkach on January 25 on SHOWTIME in a Premier Boxing Champions event.

Danny Garcia likes his chances against Spence and Pacquiao

“I feel like my style is dangerous for both Spence and Pacquiao,” said Garcia. “For Errol, I see he likes to stand in front of his opponents and he isn’t the hardest guy to hit. With Manny, I feel like my counter punching and style would also be hard for him. So, I like my chances against both of them.”

With a KO percentage of 57, Garcia isn’t a textbook knockout artist. Yeah, he can knockout guys, but at less than 60%. The fighters that Garcia has stopped have been smaller guys, and fighters with a chin problem. Garcia has never knocked out an elite level fighter during his 13-year pro career.

The closest thing Garcia has come to stopping an elite level fighter was his 4th round knockout of Khan in 2012. That wasn’t a great accomplishment considering that Khan had been stopped previously by Briedis Prescott. Garcia did stop Erik Morales in the 4th round in October 2012, but ‘El Terrible’ was 36 at the time, and fighting way out of his best weight class.

Garcia’s low punch output could doom him 

Like a lot of counter punchers, Danny doesn’t throw a lot of shots, and he waits too long. He telegraphs his left hook, and it’s easy to neutralize. Garcia’s low output would cause him problems in a fight against Spence and Pacquiao, and he’d end up falling behind.

In Garcia’s loss to Keith Thurman, he didn’t throw enough shots in the first six rounds, and he fell too far behind to make up ground. Even when Thurman faded in the second half of the fight, Garcia was too far behind to come all the way back.

Garcia isn’t taken seriously by a lot of boxing fans a true top tier welterweight, as he takes too many tune-up fights against lesser guys. He seems to be focused on just doing warm-ups most of the time for easy paydays, and when he does step it up, he loses.

These are some of the many tune-ups Garcia has taken over the years:

  • Adrian Granados
  • Rod Salka
  • Paulie Malignaggi
  • Brandon Rios
  • Samuel Vargas
  • Robert Guerrero

After January 25, you’ll be able to add Ivan Redkach to that list of tune-ups.  It’ll be nice to see Garcia take on a tough opponent in 2020, even if it’s a depleted Spence or a past his best Pacquiao. Boxing fans want to see Garcia in with the best, as his career is kind stalling out with his constant warm-ups. When you reach the level where Garcia is at, you don’t need the frequent tune-ups. It’s pointless, and a waste of time.

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