Angel Garcia Talks $5 Million Rematches, Showboating And Cutting Off The Ring

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Garcia PetersonNestor Gibbs of ThaBoxingVoice was able to speak to Danny Garcia’s father and trainer, the outspoken Angel Garcia about their controversial win over Lamont Peterson this weekend, the prospects of a rematch and even promised to give ThaBoxingVoice the scoop on Danny’s future at 140 once they make that decision.

Garcia began with his assessment of the fight and how he saw it play it. According to Angel, Danny won the first eight rounds and put Lamont at too much of a deficit to overcome in the later rounds.

“I thought we won the first eight rounds and Peterson tried to come back in the last four… strong.”

Whether Danny won the first eight rounds is debatable. What is clear is that despite the control that he seemed to be in, Peterson’s footwork and reluctance to let his hands go certainly cost him some rounds on the official scorecards.

With such an outcry over the decision, many would expect a rematch but Angel’s hesitance to confirm interest in a rematch indicates that it’s probably not in the cards.

“About the rematch, is this… if we woulda lost to them, I don’t think they woulda gave us a rematch. Nobody does that no more. Why rematch? Unless it’s over $5 million… then it’s worth it.”

I’m not sure why Angel thinks they would have refused a rematch, but the claim that nobody does rematches anymore is laughable. Even Floyd Mayweather had a rematch in the past year. I haven’t crunched the numbers, but rematches seem as common as they have ever been. As for that $5 million dollar price tag, I call that pricing yourself out of a fight you don’t want.

Despite your opinion on whether Danny Garcia actually won the fight or not (I believe he did), there is no question that he was having trouble cutting off the (very large) ring.

“We did cut the ring off. We was stalkin him. You seen Danny was never backing up. He never backed up; he was there in front of him for seven rounds, eight rounds right in front of him.”

I would say that Danny Garcia did about as good of a job as you could expect him to do under the circumstances. If a guy like Lamont Peterson wants to get on his bicycle and make you chase him around a 24 foot ring all night, it’s going to be a long night. Couple that with his reluctance to throw punches in the early rounds and the job gets even tougher.

Another thing that seems to hurt the perception of how well Danny Garcia performed was Peterson’s confidence and consistent control over the action. Not only did Peterson control the pace, but he also danced around and shuffled his feet. He even had success later in the fight when he finally decided to come forward and take advantage of a seemingly fatigued Garcia.

Despite the public perception, Angel believes that some of that stuff may have actually hurt Peterson.

“Peterson was runnin around shuffling his feet like he was Ali or some shit like that…. You gotta be classy at the end of the day. That doesn’t win rounds. A lot of judges, believe it or not, hate that shit. That’s like being arrogant. That’s like disrespecting the sport. So a lot of the judges, man you lose rounds for that shit.”

It wasn’t all criticism for Peterson though as the elder Garcia conceded that Peterson came in well prepared.

“The man came to fight. You gotta give him that, the man came to fight. It’s the same way Zab [Judah] came to fight… that tells you a lot about Danny, the kinda fighter he is, that everybody trains that next mile and that next level.”

Are Garcia’s latest struggles the result of opponents “getting up” for the fights? It’s possible. Beating the undefeated junior welterweight champion of the world would certainly be a boost to one’s status.

Other’s would point to his recent difficulty in making weight as the reason for his struggles. Nes asked whether this was the last time we would be seeing Danny at 140 and Angel remained uncertain.

“The next time you guys interview me, I’m gonna let you guys know if he’s gonna be 147 or 140 and I promise you guys that.”

There is a lot of debate on what would be best for Danny Garcia. Some say getting down to 140 is killing Danny’s energy level. Some say he doesn’t have the frame for 147. After over a year of not making 140, they may not even have a choice. If you can’t make a weight anymore, you can’t make a weight. Sometimes these decisions aren’t yours to make.

Regardless of the decision, you can expect ThaBoxingVoice.com to have the news as soon as it is made public.