Danny Garcia will need to take big risks to win belt

Boxingnews24.com

By Stanley White

Danny Garcia did what most people thought he would in defeating past his best Brandon Rios by a 9th round knockout last Saturday night to bounce back from his loss to Keith Thurman. While the outcome for Garcia (34-1, 20 KOs) was a good one with him knocking out the 31-year-old Rios with a big right hand in the 9th, it doesn’t solve his problems of how he’s going to be able to win another world title at 147 with the belts held by Keith Thurman, Errol Spence Jr., Lucas Matthysse and soon Terence Crawford.

Most of those are guys that Garcia would very likely lose to. Garcia can beat Matthysse, but he doesn’t want to fight him, because he views his WBA ‘regular’ welterweight title as being a secondary belt and not the real title, which is in Thurman’s possession.

Garcia lucked out 2 years ago when his management setup a fight against a faded Robert ‘The Ghost’ Guerrero to win the vacant World Boxing Council welterweight title. It just so happened that the WBC 147 lb. title became vacant not long after Garcia moved up to welterweight. It was the perfect situation for Garcia to win a title. He didn’t need to face a talented guy to capture the belt. He fought a fighter that was close to the end of his career in Guerrero. But it’s different now though for Garcia. There

To win a world title at welterweight, Garcia must beat Thurman, Errol Spence Jr. or Crawford. Those are 3 very tough fighters for Garcia, who struggled at times against Rios last Saturday. Shawn Porter is very interested in fighting Garcia, but the feels don’t appear to be mutual unfortunately. Spence has already called Garcia out on Twitter. Thurman seems to want to give Garcia the title shot he’s looking for after he gets his tune-up out of the way on May 19th. However, Thurman is receiving pressure from Porter with him confronting him last Saturday night in front of the media.

Porter is also giving a lot of interviews letting the boxing fans know that he wants to fight Thurman. Porter is the WBC mandatory for Thurman, so he’s in the position to push and receive the fight. Thurman clearly wants to make Garcia his second fight in 2018 after his tune-up fight, but he might not get his wish due to the pressure from Porter. Thurman is being made to look bad by Porter, and he’s probably going to need to defend against him next.

Since it’s not likely Garcia is going to get a title shot soon, he’ll need to face someone good. Garcia fights on Showtime Boxing, and the network isn’t likely going to let him fight soft touches in his main event fights without them insisting that he start fighting better fighters. If Garcia wants to fight for a world title, Spence might be his best bet because he’s available and willing to give him a shot.

What was clear in watching Garcia labor to a 9th round stoppage of Rios is he’s not the same fighter who captured 2 world titles at 140. Garcia does fit in the welterweight division like he did at 140. If Garcia is to win another title belt at 147, he’s going to need to go after Matthysse or else wait for one of the champions like Spence or Thurman to give up the belt so he can fight for the strap against another flawed contender like he did in 2016 when he fought Guerrero for the vacant WBC 147 lb. title. Garcia is not going likely going to have another world title fall into his lap like gravity dropping it to him the way the World Boxing Council made it easy for him in the past. If Garcia captures a world title in the future, he’s going to have to earn it this time by facing a quality welterweight. I’m not sure Garcia has the talent to beat the likes of Crawford, Thurman or Spence.