A world welterweight champion and fellow stablemate of the two fighters, Keith Thurman, is perhaps in as good a position as anyone to make a call on this weekend’s WBC welterweight title fight.
He very could well be fighting the winner himself.
Speaking to Showtime ahead of this weekend’s big fight in New York, Thurman went through various aspects of the fight:
PUNCHING POWER: Edge GARCIA: “Danny can punch with both hands. He does load up, so you can’t be right there in front of him.”
PHYSICAL STRENGTH: Edge PORTER: “Shawn is clearly the more physical fighter.”
DEFENSE: Edge GARCIA: “Porter’s defense is his offense. With Danny, I’ve never seen anyone so willing to just stare at me without throwing a punch. He’s committed to being second, a pure counter puncher.”
SPEED: Edge PORTER: “Shawn is faster and a little more athletic. He’ll triple on the jab to get inside and use stutter-steps. Danny’s real relaxed, but that doesn’t necessarily come through in his hand speed.”
BOXING ABILITY: Edge GARCIA: “Neither one is known for boxing. Danny’s a counter puncher, and Shawn outworks you. Danny has nice boxing movement when he wants to be evasive. He’s underrated when on his back foot. We saw that against (Lucas) Matthysse and (Brandon) Rios.”
RING IQ: EVEN: “Hard to judge. These are two world champions with tremendous amateur pedigrees.”
CHIN: EVEN: “In my fights, Porter took more big punches than Garcia did. I had to hit hard to keep Porter off me. They both have enough power to hurt each other.”
PREDICTION: “This is one of the best matchups of the year. I try not to overthink it. It’s Porter by decision or Garcia only by KO. I lean toward PORTER.”
