Danny Garcia believes his poor performance will get him Pacquiao or Spence
Pix: Danny Garcia Garcia vs. Redkach Ivan Redkach
By Dan Ambrose
Danny Garcia (36-2, 21 KOs) is counting on his pedestrian performance in beating Ivan Redkach (23-5-1, 18 KOs) last Saturday night will lure Manny Pacquiao or Errol Spence Jr. into wanting to fight him. Those are the two fighters that Garcia has on his 2-fighter target list for his next fight.
One of the major reasons why Garcia, 31, picked out the southpaw Redkach is to get him ready for Spence or Pacquiao, since both of those guys fight out of the left-handed stance.
Had Spence not been involved in a car crash last October, Garcia would have fought him in a big money pay-per-view match last Saturday. With Spence’s status unclear, Garcia may have to wait a long time before he faces him, if he ever does.
Danny Garcia looked beatable
Garcia looked flat-footed, slow and beatable in defeating Redkach by a 12 round unanimous decision at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The scores were 118-110, 117-111, 117-111. After the fight, Garcia was trying to put a positive spin on his less than great performance against the 33-year-old Redkach.
Garcia, 31, was expected to destroy Redkach and knock him out in the process, but he couldn’t do it. He never came close to stopping him. In the past, Redkach had been knocked out by John Molina Jr. and Dejan Zlaticanin. For Danny not to be able to stop him, it was a big disappointment.
The nine months of inactivity Garcia had going into the Redkach fight obviously didn’t help him. Also, it’s been 5 years since Garcia beat a quality opponent in Lamont Peterson, and even that fight was against a B-level guy. Garcia has never beaten A-level fighter during his 13-year pro career, and that might explain why he didn’t look good against Redkach.
Danny loses to the A-level fighters. He doesn’t beat them, so it’s unreasonable for anyone to have expected him to trounce Redkach. Yes, if it was someone talented like Spence, Shawn Porter or Terence Crawford, then they would deserve to be criticized if they didn’t knockout Redkach. But for Garcia not to do it, that’s expected.
Garcia expects to get a big fight
“I felt like I won the fight. And I won the fight easy,” said Garcia at the post-fight news conference last Saturday. “I wanted the knockout, I didn’t get it, and it is what it is,” Garcia said in the we. “It’s on to better and bigger things. Maybe this is the type of performance I needed for Manny Pacquiao or somebody else to fight me.”
Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KOs) will likely be fighting Mikey Garcia next, provided that he gets passed Jessie Vargas on February 29 on DAZN. That’s the guy that Pacquiao, 41, is clearly looking to fight.
It’s not that Mikey is necessarily a better fighter at 147, because he’s probably not as good as Danny in this weight class. But what Mikey brings to the table is his fan appeal. He can arguably bring in more boxing fans for a pay-per-view fight against Manny.
If Danny doesn’t get Spence or Pacquiao next, he’ll look to setup a rematch with Keith ‘One Time’ Thurman, who beat him by a close 12 round decision in 2017. Garcia says he wants to fight Thurman again if he can’t get Spence or Pacquiao. What’s interesting is that Garcia isn’t looking to set up a rematch with Shawn Porter despite losing to him in 2018.
Garcia was shaken from that loss, as he’s taken 2 soft opponents since then in Redkach and Adrian Granados. It’s almost as if Garcia was knocked off the horse, and he’s afraid to get back on. The experience was so jarring for him obviously. You can’t blame Garcia for NOT wanting to fight Porter again, because if he loses to him a second time, his career could implode.
Source BoxinNews24