With welterweights Danny Garcia and Keith Thurman, arguably the two best 147-pound fighters operating today, set to meet next year (likely in March) there have been verbal barbs exchanged bwteeen the two. Thurman, unbeaten and the reigning WBA champion, laid into Garcia for choosing the unheralded Samuel Vargas, tweeting how Garcia should “enjoy your last cherry of the year…..I’ll be waiting to take that green belt in 2017!”
Garcia, unbeaten and the WBC ruler, shot back with his assertion that “One Time” is not even the best fighter he will have faced. Garcia, who became a two-belt world champion by upsetting 140-pound champ Amir Khan in 2012, said at a recent press conference that Khan is a better fighter than Thurman.
“To me Thurman’s not the best fighter I’m going to be in the ring with,” Garcia said this week. “Amir Khan is a better fighter than Keith Thurman, Lucas Matthysse was a more dangerous fighter than Keith Thurman. I’ve seen him fight in the amateurs, I was always number one, he wasn’t.”
While fans will likely agree how Argentine slugger Matthysse was, at the time of his 2013 fight with Garcia, very dangerous – coming off a hugely impressive crushing of Lamont Peterson as he was at the time – these same fans may not agree with Garcia when he says Khan is a better fghter than Thurman. Khan has better speed than Thurman, but better power, chin and overall toughness? No.
Garcia had better be entering the March fight knowing full well that Thurman is in fact very possibly the toughest test of his entire career so far; certainly his toughest test at welterweight. This one, a genuine 50-50 fight, will elevate the winner and, if it’s as good as the thrilling Thurman-Shawn Porter battle, the loser also. Who wins next year’s biggest fight of 2017? Thurman will be rested having been out of ation since the gruelling June war with Porter, while Garcia will, if nothing much more, have a chance to sharpen his skills against Vargas next month.
Thurman may well bring out the best in Garcia, and vice-versa.
