Garcia-Herrera: Danny needs to step it up after this mismatch

By Boxing News - 02/22/2014 - Comments

garcia564By Dan Ambrose: WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia (27-0, 16 KO’s) will be taking a step back from facing dangerous opposition next month when he faces Mauricio Herrera (20-3, 7 KO’s) on March 15th at the Coliseo Ruben Rodriguez, in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Garcia recently defeated former WBC interim light welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse by a clinch-filled 12 round decision last September.

Garcia needs to keep facing quality opposition if he wants to make a case that he deserves a fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. The worst thing that Garcia can do is to step back from good opponents and go back to the lower level opposition that he was fighting earlier in his career. Garcia has fought a number of older fighters recently Zab Judah and Erik Morales. That’s why it was a welcome break to see him facing Matthysse last September. Unfortunately, Garcia didn’t look good in that fight due to his reluctance to fight Matthysse in a one-on-one style. Garcia spent much of the fight hitting Matthysse with low blows, clinching, and running.

It was such a disappointment to many fans that they hoped that Garcia would give Matthysse a rematch in order to try and look good in order to earn a shot against Mayweather. But Garcia said that he didn’t need to fight Matthysse again, and that he had given him his one shot. This attitude would be fine if Garcia had a lot of good opposition to face, but he doesn’t, as you can see with him fighting Herrera. Chances are that after that we could see Garcia facing Viktor Postol, and then Selcuk Aydin and Humberto Soto soon. There’s really no one for Garcia to fight other than Matthysse and Lamont Peterson.

Matthysse wanted a rematch, but Garcia decided to face Herrera, a fighter who has lost 2 out of his last 4 fights instead. This is a fight that is designed to make Garcia look good, because he sure didn’t look good against Matthysse.

Garcia feels that the Herrera fight will be a meaningful one for him because he’ll be fighting in his parent’s home country in Puerto Rico. With him facing Herrera, Garcia has a good chance of looking good in this fight if for no other reason than it being a bad mismatch.

Herrera has defeats against Karim Mayfield and Mike Alvarado recently. He won’t his last two fights against Ji-Hoon Kim and Miguel Angel Huerta, but those were beatable opposition.

The Garcia vs. Herrera fight card will have heavyweight Deontay Wilder facing Malik Scott in a WBC heavyweight eliminator. This fight might save the card if the Garcia-Herrera fight turns out to be as dull as the Garcia vs. Matthysse fight. Garcia just needs to aim his punches above the bell, and avoid clinching and running like he did in the Matthysse fight. He’s got to start making his fights more entertaining if he wants to fight Mayweather because he might find it hard to get a fight against him if he continues to fight like he did in his last fight.



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