March 29, 2024

The fight between Danny Garcia 34 (20 KOs)-2 (0 KOs)-0 and Shawn Porter 29 (17 KOs)-2 (0 KOs)-1 in a way was not the fight that many spectators were expecting. When the fight was announced it was assumed by many that the referee Steve Lillis would have his hands full with Porter rushing in as he has done in so many of his fights, but in this fight with Garcia, Porter showed us something new.

Porter adopted the style of a back foot outside fighter for large portions of the fight. Since Garcia often struggles with movement Porter aimed to use his legs countering incoming jabs with overhand rights and then spinning Garcia to get on the inside, in short this tactic worked well. It was a closely contested fight with both fighters making a case in many of the rounds, but the only rounds that Danny won clearly was the first, when he was effective at timing Shawn on the way in. From that point onwards Porter was having great success simply outworking Garcia on the inside, especially using a left hook to the body. Garcia at no point in the fight was landing consistently on Porter and it seemed that he needed Porter to stay still to throw and shots and that is what Porter simply refused to do. Porter was never at mid- range, he would be all the way in using classic roughhousing tactics on the inside or all the way out on the outside.

When the scorecards were read of 115-113 and two of 116-112 it seemed fair in my book with Porter winning handily but not dominating Garcia by any stretch of the imagination. Garcia did operate well in the opening rounds and was often slick evading Porter’s wide shots but he’ll need to somehow improve against movers if he wants to still be competitive at the top level, because all the top fighters at welterweight have top boxing IQ, and would exploit such a glaring hole in Garcia’s game.

If you were to score the fight for Garcia I could definitely see how you’d reach that conclusion, but for me Garcia just didn’t have enough output to win the rounds. They’ll be plenty more fights out for him, a lucrative rematch with Amir Khan perhaps, but he’ll have to go back to the drawing board for now. As for Porter, he is suddenly thrown in with the lions at 147 with Errol Spence calling for a unification fight, and he’d definitely be the betting underdog if that fight was ever made. But being no stranger to not being the favourite, and having dragged himself back to the world level Welterweight scene it would be foolish to disregard the Ohio man.

On the undercard Yordenis Ugas 23 (11 KOs)-3 (0 KOs)-0 won a wide unanimous decision against Cesar Miguel Barrionuevo 34 (24 KOs)-4 (0 KOs)2, and Adam Kownacki 18 (14 KOs)-0-0 won a razor thin unanimous decision against former heavyweight champion Charles Martin 25 (23 KOs)-2 (1 KO)-1.