Garcia Pondering a Move to 154
Despite having a number of potentially lucrative bouts waiting within the welterweight division, Danny “Swift” Garcia (35-2, 21 KO’s) is seriously considering moving up to super welterweight.
But first however, Garcia needs to take care of business on January 25 when he takes on the challenge of Ivan “El Terrible” Redkach (23-4-1, 18 KO’s). The two men will collide in the SHOWTIME Boxing main event live from the Brooklyn Barclays Center.
TIME FOR A CHANGE
When giving Garcia’s resume a quick perusal, it will quickly come to light that his best and most effective days took place when campaigning at junior welterweight. While competing at 140, Swift picked up notable wins over Kendall Holt, Erik Morales (twice), Amir Khan, Zab Judah, Lucas Matthysse, and Mauricio Herrera. Not that his tenure at welterweight has been subpar.
As a welterweight, Swift has faced such significant names such as Paul Malignaggi, Robert Guerrero, Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter. Although, where Garcia made it out of the treacherous 140lbs landscape unscathed, he has already suffered two defeats, to Thurman and Porter, during his stay at 147. Now, Garcia feels that it’s time to move up one more time.
“I want to win this fight [Redkach] and then I want one more 147, get a world title and then I want to go to 154 and start a new journey.”
GARCIA’S GOING TO 154, BUT WILL HIS POWER?
For many, this new jump in weight sounds like it might be one too many! Thus far, when utilizing his relaxed counter-punching style of fighting, Danny Garcia has already had his hands very, very full at 147.
Going one step further, when taking on the upper echelon of talent at welterweight, Swift’s power has not been as lethally devastating as it was at 140. This is not too suggest that he has become feather-fisted, far from it. However, if Garcia was to make the leap up to the next division, there have to be serious concerns regarding how well his punching power does, or doesn’t, carry over.
Yet, at the end of the day, Garcia has always been a fighter dripping with confidence and self-belief. With this being the case, along with his recent verbalizations, it’s clear that Swift thinks he has what it takes to get the job done at super welterweight.
So, provided all goes according to plan with Redkach, the boxing world will not have to wait all that long to see what the 154lbs version of Danny Garcia is all about.
“If I’m guaranteed a big fight, I’m going to stay at 147. Like for instance, if Manny and Spence fight and then I don’t get it, I might as well go up and start a new journey. There is no reason for me to be at 147 because I can always fight Thurman or Porter at 154…I think I could do middleweight but that’s a long shot!”
By: Bakari Simpson
