On Saturday we get round two of the new PBC on ESPN line up, as Danny “Swift” Garcia finally makes the step up to the illustrious welterweight to face former champ and part time announcer Paulie “Magic Man” Malignaggi.
Danny Garcia has been the Junior Welterweight king ever since he knocked out Amir Khan in 2012. Since thenGarcia has racked up one of the better resumes in boxing with victories over Eric Morales, Zab Judah, and Lucas Mattysse. Danny’s reign as the 140lb king came with some criticism, mainly due to him not fighting guys he couldn’t fight due to the boxing civil war, like Tim Bradley, Brandon Rios, and Ruslan Provodnikov. In the big fights he could actually take, he dominated, as his undefeated record shows. And with nothing left to prove in the Junior Welterweight division, Swift is making the move to the money division, Welterweight live on ESPN.
Danny Garcia has been positioned as one of the PBC stars, so moving up to welterweight where the another big PBC star Keith Thurman resides, seems like a natural progression. Welterweight is also home to many PBC fighters such as Shawn Porter and Adrian Broner. Al Haymon clearly sees this division as his money maker, and now Danny Garcia has a chance to really make some noise on free tv.
If Danny wants to start off his Welterweight career with a bang, he’ll have to beat one of the smartest and toughest tests around, Paulie Malignaggi. Fellow PBC fighter Adrian Broner took the same approach when he made the move to welterweight, as his first welterweight fight was also against the Magic Man.
Only problem is Paulie almost beat Broner, and revealed some cracks in Adrian Broner’s game that were later exposed by Marcos Maidana and Shawn Porter. So if you think Danny Garcia is just going to show up to his unofficial home arena the Barclays center and have an easy pay day, think again. Barclays might be his unofficial home base, but Brooklyn, New York is Paulie Malignaggi’s actual home town. It’ll be very interesting to see who has the home field advantage.
Saturday will surely tell us if Danny is indeed ready to take on the welterweight world, and with PBC stocked with good fighters in this division, we could be seeing a ton of great welterweight fights on PBC in the coming years. Or, we might find out live on ESPN that Danny Garcia made a grave mistake moving up, and Paulie is more than the 147lb gatekeeper currently, he’s an actual player ready to reclaim his title.
They call this sport the theater of the unexpected and for my money Saturday is just that. Garcia is favored, but don’t be surprised if the Magic Man pulls off the greatest trick of his career.
– John Dyer / @johnjohndyer
Leave a Reply