Garcia: “I Might Be the Second Fighter in History to Be Bit”

Garcia Fought with Injured Foot

It’s no secret that Danny “Swift” Garcia (36-2, 21 KO’s) chose Ivan “El Terrible” Redkach (23-5-1, 18 KO’s) for his January 25 opponent due to the Ukrainian’s southpaw stance. However, once in the ring, Redkach’s awkward southpaw stance was the least of Swift’s difficulties.

HOT FOOT BLUES

Even though Danny Garcia went to the ring expecting a challenge from El Terrible’s style, in the end, his own body was his bigger adversary. During the post-fight conference, the accomplished Philly boxer revealed that roughly about the halfway point of the prizefight, his foot began causing him quite a bit of pain.

While Redkach sports the atypical southpaw stance, Garcia has a truly unique sixth toe on his right foot! Despite trying to tape the foot up as he usually does, this time around his normal routine did not help. Not only did Swift speak on the ailment, he showed the media at hand how the impaired foot was bleeding through his sock.

“For some odd reason, it felt like I didn’t have enough energy to step on the gas and in the late rounds my foot was kind of burning. Come to find out when I took my shoe off, like half of my foot was peeled back! Yeah, that’s a problem when you have six toes…my foot don’t fit in the shoe, I’m dead serious! I got sneaker problems, I got to buy one shoe bigger. I taped it but today it still happened, today it felt like severe pain.”

ODD TASTY TREAT

As if a sore oozing foot was not bad enough, Garcia was thrown another odd curveball in the form of a ravenous Redkach. Obviously feeling that he was well down on the cards, and having no other technical recourse, the overmatched El Terrible resorted to chomping down on Garcia’s shoulder.

The action immediately brought to mind the infamous Mike Tyson, who twice bit Evander Holyfield. As zany as the incident was, Swift took it all in stride and with good humor.

“I thought a mosquito got me! I was like ‘oh’, then I look over and he’s biting me, I think I might be the second fighter in history to be bit, right?! Who else, Evander Holyfield and Danny Garcia, put me in the history books.”

Now with the odd night in the office behind him Garcia will resume his attempts to land a meaningful title fight. As he has said out his own mouth, Swift is openly gunning for a shot at either, WBC and IBF world welterweight champion Errol “The Truth” Spence Jr (26-0, 21 KO’s), or WBA super world welterweight champion Manny “Pac Man” Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KO’s).

By: Bakari Simpson