By Sevak Sarkisian: Danny Garcia is a young fighter at the age of only 24. He became the new WBC Jr welterweight world champion this past March by defeating the legendary Erik Morales by a unanimous decision. Morales was obviously way past his prime, however he was still a world class opponent and by far the best opponent Garcia has faced thus far in his young career. Morales did give Garcia some trouble in the early rounds, and did win a few of them.
However, the fight became more one sided in Garcia’s favor as the fight progressed. That fight taught us more about Garcia then any of his fights because of the quality of the opponent.
I have little choice but to question his ring IQ because for a good portion of that fight Garcia was unwilling to impose his size and strength advantage.. Instead he gladly was willing to make the fight a chess match which was beneficial to his opponent in this case. Another thing I didn’t like was the fact that Garcia seemed reluctant to get his punches off against the aging veteran. Especially in the early going he simply was not throwing enough punches in my humble opinion. If he doesn’t turn up his punch output he will get destroyed against Khan. He also has to use his physicality against Khan. The two things he failed to do against Morales, he will have to do against Kahn. The reason why I say Garcia has to throw more punches and use his physicality is because we all know that Amir Khan doesn’t fight well going backwards.
This was evident in his winning effort against Marcos Maidana, and in his loss against Lamont Peterson. Khan was visibly having a rough time dealing with a strong fighter coming forward. Khan has to learn how to box without making it look like he is running. He has extremely fast hands but it would do him good if he could get better at boxing in closer when he has to. He seems to always have the size advantage when he fights, but somehow it seems he’s able to get physically bullied by anyone who presses forward.
However, I honestly don’t like Garcia’s chances against Amir Khan, especially at this stage of his young professional career. I believe Khan’s experience and his willingness to throw a lot of punches will result in a well-deserved decision win for Amir Khan.