By Craig Page: Former two-division world champion Danny Garcia and WBA ‘regular’ middleweight champ Erislandy Lara are being discussed.
With the 39-year-old Lara (29-3-3, 17 KOs) with potentially a lot of time to kill now that IBF/WBA Super World champion Gennadiy Golovkin being ordered to defend against his is IBF mandatory Esquiva Falcao, that frees the Cuban talent up to face Danny ‘Swift’ Garcia next.
Salvador Rodriguez of ESPN is reporting the news of the potential fight between WBA secondary 160-lb champion Lara and the 34-year-old Garcia.
If the fight comes off, Garcia (37-3, 21 KOs) would be moving up from 154 challenge Lara for his WBA middleweight strap. This comes after Danny moved up to 154 last July in his debut at in the division against Jose Benavidez Jr.
“Lara vs. Danny García was discussed a few days ago,” said Salvador Rodriguez on Twitter.
Garcia won the fight by a 12 round majority decision but didn’t look particularly impressive beating the former welterweight contender Benavidez Jr, the older brother of former two-time WBC super middleweight champion David Benavidez.
In fairness to Garcia, he was coming off a year and a half layoff since his last fight against Errol Spence Jr in December 2020, so you can’t blame him for looking less than spectacular against former Terence Crawford knockout victim Benavidez Jr.
If Danny Garcia were to beat the aging Lara to scoop up his WBA 160-lb title, it would put him in a position to battle the WBA Super champion Golovkin next year if he doesn’t retire or get beaten in the meantime.
Golovkin vs. Garcia would be a tremendous fight, attracting much interest from the boxing world. But for that fight to happen, Danny will need to beat Lara, and Golovkin will need to keep winning until the match is made.
Garcia is a former two-divison world champion with a lot of talent, power, and experience. Unfortunately, his career has slowed down since his loss to Spence in 2020, but he still has a lot of talent and power.
A victory for Garcia over Lara is certainly a possibility despite the size difference between the two. Lara has spent a lot of years fighting at 154, so he won’t have a huge size advantage over Garcia the way that someone like Jermall Charlo, Chris Eubank Jr, or Golovkin would.
