By Chris Williams: Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford wasn’t impressed with what he saw from Danny ‘Swift’ Garcia in his win over hand-picked opponent Ivan ‘El Terrible’ Redkach last Saturday night in New York. Immediately after the fight, WBO welterweight champion Crawford (36-0, 27 KOs) posted on social media, showing a meme of a sleeping person. Garcia made Redkach (23-5-1, 18 KOs) look like a world beater.
Garcia (36-2, 21 KOs) LABORED to beat a Redkach in front of an angry crowd at the Barclays Center on Showtime. The fans were booing Garcia during the contest, and it’s not all that surprising. Garcia looked one-paced, flat-footed, and totally unlike an elite level fighter in his performance.
Garcia not a great fighter at 147
You can’t blame Crawford for kicking sand in Garcia’s face after this performance. It was a mess of a fight for the 31-year-old Garcia. After the fight, Garcia blamed his lackluster win on him having to cut weight. However, the way Danny fought wasn’t any different from what we’ve seen from him since he moved up to 147 in 2014.
Garcia was a good fighter at 140, but he’s really looked poor since his move up in weight to 147 Danny struggled to beat Robert ‘The Ghost’ Guerrero in 2016, and he barely beat Lamont Peterson. A shot Brandon Rios put hands on Garcia in their fight in 2018 before losing by a 9th round knockout.
Garcia has lost to Shawn Porter and Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman at 147, and he probably would be better off moving back down to 140. He doesn’t plan on doing that. Garcia says he wants to move up to 154 after one or two more fights, and go after a world title there.
These are Garcia’s wins at 147:
- Ivan Redkach
- Brandon Rios
- Rod Salka
- Lamont Peterson
- Adrian Granados
- Samuel Vargas
- Robert Guerrero
It’s obvious that Garcia hasn’t established himself as a good fighter at 147 since his move up. He certainly hasn’t beaten anyone that you can call an excellent welterweight. Guerrero was a good fighter at super featherweight, but he wasn’t the same guy when he moved up to 147 to chase paydays.
Danny blames performance on cutting weight
“I’m not going to lie, I felt good, but I didn’t feel my best. I did lose a lot of weight for this fight, so maybe that played a factor. From a long layoff, and just losing so much weight. I lost about 25 pounds in eight weeks.”
🥱😴
— Terence Crawford (@terencecrawford) January 26, 2020
Garcia won the fight with Redkach by the scores 117-111, 118-110, 117-111. Those are pretty lopsided scores, but the fight should have been a wipe out. Redkach and been destroyed in 4 rounds by John Molina Jr. and Dejan Zlaticanin not long ago, and he’d been dominated by super featherweight Tevin Farmer. Ivan ‘El Terrible’ was way out of his best weight class, and he should have been easy work for Garcia.
Crawford would obviously like to fight Danny if the possible, but that’s not likely to be in the cards. Garcia is with PBC, and fights on a different network.