The Battle For The Barclays: Garcia-Judah Preview

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This Saturday, boxing fans could be in for what could be looked at as the best overall boxing weekend of the year thus far. In this article I’ll be previewing half of 2 big main events that will be happening this weekend. Boxing fans dreams for days like this where 2 top notch events are on display, as long as they are not on at the same time. In what seems to be a heated battle, 2 of the top 10 light welterweights will be squaring off. The WBA Super Light Welterweight and the WBC Light Welterweight champion Danny “Swift” Garcia faces the former IBF and former WBO Light Welterweight champion Zab “Super” Judah, in Judah’s hometown of Brooklyn in The Barclays Center.

Philadelphia’s own, young rising star, Danny Garcia, comes into this fight with a record of 25-0 with 16 KOs. He has been a very polarizing figure in boxing, as people either see him as 1 of the futures of the sport, since he is only 25 yrs old, or people see him as an overrated fighter that upset Khan and beat up a 35-36 year old man twice, in Morales. No matter how you want to look at it, Garcia is currently 1 of the top 140 lb fighters in the world and until he both faces and beats another top 5 guy in the division, or he loses, he will continue to be a heavily debated fighter. All of this and I haven’t even mentioned the most controversial part about Garcia so far, his dad, Angel Garcia, but we’ll get to him later.

The brash, cocky, and still talented, Brooklyn born, Zab Judah comes into this fight with something to fight for, not only the title, not only for pride and respect, but for his own backyard. Brooklyn. This will be Garcia’s 2nd fight in the Barclay’s Center and it seems like they are trying to make it his new home, a notion that Zab is surely taking with some disrespect to himself. The 35 yr old Judah comes into this fight with a 42-7 record with 29 KOs and has won 5 world titles at the light welterweight and welterweight divisions. He has also been an undisputed world welterweight champion. However, most of his championship wins are years in his past and he wants to show people that he still has it.

This fight was originally supposed to take place on February 9th, because of that, it seems like we’ve been waiting on this fight to happen for years. There is no question that this fight has a lot of bad blood involved, and most of it seems to revolve around Zab Judah vs. Danny Garcia’s father, Angel Garcia. Most of us have seen the 1st encounter in January:

Then when it finally seemed like things had settled down and cooler heads were going to prevail, this happens earlier this week:

After all of that, it’s hard to try to take emotions, bad intentions, and showmanship out of making your decision, but I’m going to try to do just that. I feel like I agree with both of the people that talk about Danny Garcia. I feel he is 1 of the young potential stars of the sport, however, I also think he is a bit overrated. This bout will not exactly get him over the hump in most people’s eyes, but it’s a fight he has to win and I think he will. So my pick for this one is Garcia with an 8th rd TKO.

No matter what happens in this fight, it will be interesting to just see the post fight interviews. You may see Zab talking trash, Angel talking trash, or who knows; maybe all of this was a show to sell tickets. There’s only 1 way to tell, sit down and enjoy the great boxing shows that will be on display this Saturday in Brooklyn and Argentina. This is definitely not  one to miss, so enjoy the fights.