WBA light welterweight champion Danny Garcia made weight on Friday for his title defense against Mauricio Herrera on Saturday night in Puerto Rico. Garcia is hoping to impress the Puerto Rican fans, many of which won’t be coming to the fight to see him.
They’ll be coming to see the undercard match-up between Juan Manuel Lopez and Daniel Ponce De Leon. Golden Boy Promotions chose Herrera for Garcia to fight in order to give Garcia a better chance of looking good than if he were to face someone that he’d have to struggle a little to beat. The idea here is to try and turn Danny into another Miguel Cotto type of attraction in Puerto Rico. I don’t see it as being possible because Garcia’s not a particularly exciting fighter like Cotto is. Danny does a lot of holding and moving when he faces good opposition. It’s not all that exciting to watch, especially when he’s throwing repeated low blows like he did in his last fight against Lucas Matthysse. Garcia doesn’t have the fighting style that is crowd-pleasing like Cotto or Matthysse. It’s a lot of methodical stuff that is about as interesting to watch as watching paint dry.
There’s really not too many good fighters left in the division Garcia would get much of a fight against. That’s kind of his dilemma. Garcia doesn’t want to move up in weight to the welterweight division, so he’s stuck fighting the likes of Herrera. It’s going to be very difficult for Garcia to pick up new fans unless he moves up in weight. He’s not interested in fighting Lucas Matthysse again, and that was the only guy that Garcia has ever fought besides a way past his prime Zab Judah and Erik Morales that interested fans.
In the co-feature bout, Deontay Wilder (30-0, 30 KO’s) made weight for his WBC heavyweight eliminator bout against Malik Scott (36-1-1, 13 KO’s). During the face off, Scott wore a bag for his head much to the amusement of the 6’7” Deontay.
Deontay is predicting a knockout in this fight, and he wants to look especially good for this fight in order to impress the fans and get them ready for his title challenge later on in 2014 against either Chris Arreola or Bermane Stiverne. Scott, 33, doesn’t have a lot of power to speak of, and it seems pretty likely that he’ll be looking to survive in this fight in the early rounds. Scott is going to want to take Deontay deep into the fight because he’s never been past the 4th round before during any of his 30 fights.
Juan Manuel Lopez (33-3, 30 KO’s) has a tough fight on his hands against Daniel Ponce De Leon (45-5, 35 KO’s). The two of them fought many years ago with Lopez scoring a quick 1st round stoppage win. But De Leon is ready to avenge that defeat on Saturday night, and it’s going to be really tough on Lopez to try and win this one.
Weights for Saturday’s card:
Danny Garcia 139.75 vs. Mauricio Herrera 139.25
Deontay Wilder 227 vs. Malik Scott 238
Juanma Lopez 129 vs. Daniel Ponce de Leon 128.5
