By Ian S Palmer
Former world champions Danny Garcia of Philadelphia and Brandon Rios of Lubbock, Texas will be battling it out this Saturday, Feb. 17th at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 12-round welterweight bout can be seen live in the U.S. On Showtime. TSN 2 will be showing it on tape delay the next afternoon at 12:30 ET. The always exciting Rios last fought in June when he stopped Aaron Herrera in the seventh round. Meanwhile, Garcia’s last ring outing took place last March when he dropped a 12-round split decision to WBA Super World Welterweight Champ Keith Thurman.
The 31-year-old Rios who fights out of Oxnard, California enjoyed a fine amateur career and was undefeated after his first 27 pro bouts. He’s a former world lightweight titleholder with a record of 34-3-1 with 25 Kos. His biggest wins have been against Herrera, Miguel Acosta, Richar Abril, Urbano Antillon, John Murray and twice against Mike Alvarado. He faced Alvarado three times in an exciting trilogy and lost the second bout by a 12-round unanimous decision. Both of his wins against Alvarado were by stoppage.
His other two losses came at the hands of Manny Pacquiao by unanimous decision in November, 2013 and by ninth-round stoppage to Timothy Bradley in November, 2015. Rios stands 5-feet-8-inches tall and has a reach of 68 inches. He’s fought 212 rounds since turning pro back in 2004. Rios has pretty good power with a current knockout ratio of 66 per cent. However, he was handed a six-month suspension when failing his post-fight drug test against Pacquiao.
Rios may be known as a fan-friendly brawler, but he does possess pretty good and somewhat underrated boxing skills. Rios is effective when he works his way on the inside, but sooner or later his natural instinct takes over and most of his bouts turn into toe-to-toe slugfests. And although he’s been stopped on two occasions it’s safe to say that he owns a pretty solid chin.
The 29-year-old Garcia, is a former WBC and WBA Junior Welterweight Champion, won the vacant WBC Welterweight Title in January of 2016 with a unanimous decision over Robert Guerrero. However he lost that title to Thurman in his last bout. He enters the bout with a record of 33-1 and has 19 Kos to his name. He has power in both hands, but it hasn’t really been evident lately since he has just three knockouts in his past nine fights since 2013.
Garcia’s faced some top-quality opposition over the years such as Thurman, Guerrero, Paulie Malignaggi, Amir Khan, Zab Judah, Mauricio Herrera, Lucas Matthysse, Kendall Holt, Nate Campbell, and Erik Morales twice. Garcia isn’t really a standout boxer, but he’s solid in all areas of the sport with good power, speed, defence, ring generalship and chin, and that’s why he’s been beaten just once as a pro, and that was a close split decision to Thurman. Garcia has fought 218 rounds since turning pro back in 2007.
He stands just over 5-feet-8-inches tall and has a reach of 68.5 inches, giving him a negligible half-inch advantage over Rios in both height and reach. His current knockout ratio stands at 56 per cent and he doesn’t usually go looking for knockouts as he’s actually quite patient. He’s had some problems in the past with skilled boxers, such as Herrera and Judah and had to work hard against them since he was forced to go after them. He prefers opponents who are right in front of him, such as Rios, as he can eventually wear them down with his jab and left hook.
Prediction…
This is a good matchup, but Garcia has the better overall natural boxing skills. Rios has a ton of heart though and just keeps coming forwards. It should be an interesting and fan-friendly fight with each boxer having their moments, but I think in the end Garcia will have his hand held up as the winner.
