You would have been hard pressed to find anyone picking Danny Garcia to beat Lucas Matthysse here in Vegas, but it seems that Garcia thrives off being told what he can’t do.
They call boxing the Sweet Science for a reason, sometimes your brain has to work as well as your fists.
Garcia used his brain and his boxing skills to slay the Giant that was Lucas Matthysee. Garcia wasn’t going to be baited into Matthysee’s trap instead he did what Devon Alexander and Zab Judah did before him. He kept his distance, used his job, went to the body and held when he needed to.
Bernard Hopkins advised Garcia to use subtle movement early on slow down Matthysee and then take over in the later rounds. That is exactly what he did. Garcia was very cautious in the first four rounds, but slowly but surely he started to pick up the pace and hit Matthysee with clean crisp shots. One of those shot closed up Matthysee’s eye and changed the whole complextion of the fight.
Garcia dominated the middle rounds and scored a crucial 11th round knockdown of Matthysee which gave him enough of a cushion (he lost a point in the 12th for a low blow, so he needed it) to pull out an unanmious decision.
While Garcia would seem to be a natural opponent for Mayweather, but we will see. Garcia keeps proving us all wrong, so you have been warned to bet against him again.