Danny Garcia Out To Secure A Place In The Hall Of Fame Against Erislandy Lara

September 10, 2024
5 months
Danny Garcia will fight WBA middleweight champion Erislandy Lara on Saturday

Danny Garcia has made it perfectly clear his motivation for returning to the ring to challenge WBA middleweight champion Erislandy Lara following a two-year absence.

“It’s definitely legacy, my legacy is everything to me,” he told Boxing Social. “Since I started boxing, I wanted to be an Olympic gold medalist [and] I wanted to be a world champion in three different weight classes. I didn’t get the gold medal, but I got two championships in two divisions, and I always said I wanted three … I’m not gonna stop until I achieve it.”

Garcia (37-3-0 21 KO) will have the opportunity to achieve his “dream” of becoming a three-weight world champion when he fights Lara (30-3-3 18 KO) on Saturday at the T Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Their bout will act as the co-main event to the unified super-middleweight world title fight between champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Edgar Berlanga.

The Philadelphia fighter’s legacy is already in a strong position having enjoyed a hugely successful prime at light-welterweight and welterweight. During a near-five-year spell between early 2012 and late 2016, Garcia was among the finest 140lb and 147lb fighters at a time when the divisions were thriving.

Garcia Was Unstoppable For Five Years

In a very productive 2012 at light-welterweight, he twice defeated Mexican legend Erik Morales – the first to claim the vacant WBC world title – either side of cleaning out WBA title-holder Amir Khan in four rounds to become a unified champion.

In 2013, Garcia defended his titles twice, starting with a win over future Hall of Famer Zab Judah, followed by a victory against the highly-rated Lucas Matthysse on the undercard of the super-fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Canelo.

Garcia maintained his winning form in 2014, even if his momentum was checked somewhat. He was fortunate to escape with a majority-decision win over Mauricio Herrera before dominating Rod Salka in a mismatched catchweight bout.

After another catchweight fight against Lamont Peterson to begin 2015, which Garcia won by majority decision, ‘Swift’ made the step up to welterweight to face former world champion Paulie Malignaggi, whom he stopped in nine rounds.

Garcia then became a two-weight world champion at the start of 2016, claiming the vacant WBC belt by outpointing Robert Guerrero. He fought once more that year, against Samuel Vargas, although his title was not on the line.

Garcia Suffered Late-Career Losses

Swift’s 33-fight win streak, which took in three world titles across two divisions, came to an end in March 2017 when he fell to a controversial split-decision defeat to then-WBA title-holder Keith Thurman in a unification bout. Garcia had the chance to become a three-time world champion two fights later but lost a razor-thin decision to Shawn Porter in September 2018.

Wins over the likes of Brandon Rios, Adrian Granados, and Ivan Redkach in that same period kept Garcia in contention, but there was a growing sense that his prime years were behind him.

If his previous losses to Thurman and Porter were close and contentious, there was no disputing his third defeat to Errol Spence Jr in December 2020 in Garcia’s most recent world title fight; Spence, then the WBA, WBC, and IBF welterweight champion, dominated Swift on points.

Since then, Garcia has fought just once; after a 19-month absence, he returned to edge out Jose Benavidez Jr in a majority decision in July 2022. It means Saturday’s fight with Lara will be only his second bout in almost four years.

Three-Weight Club Contains All-Time Greats

As a two-weight world champion, Garcia has already achieved more than most boxers can dream of, but should he accomplish his goal of winning a title in a third division, he will join some impressive company.

The three-weight club is not exactly exclusive, with almost 60 fighters achieving the feat throughout boxing history, but it is a club that contains all-time greats; from legends of the distant past like Bob Fitzsimmons and Henry Armstrong through to the icons of the 1970s and 80s like Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard, up to the turn of the century with Oscar De La Hoya and Roy Jones Jr, and the modern-day fighters such as Manny Pacquiao, Mayweather, Terence Crawford, and Naoya Inoue. Garcia is now one fight and victory away from joining such boxing luminaries.

It will be no easy task. At 41 years old, Lara may be the oldest active world champion in boxing, but the Cuban has taken comfortably to middleweight with three straight wins and is the sharper fighter.

Garcia certainly has the skill and the will to create his own slice of history, and if he is able to become a three-weight world champion, there will be no denying him his coveted place in the Hall of Fame.

“Looking at the last 12 years of my career, going back to 2012 and to now in 2024, it’s been a hell of a run and it went by so quick,” Garcia said. “It’s a blessing to still be here fighting for world titles. It shows you how great I am. Many fighters can last a decade-plus; I’m still here fighting at the highest level.”

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