In a sport as unforgiving as boxing, where there are few happy endings to close a career and even legendary names can find themselves being pushed out on anything but their own terms, former two-division champion Danny “Swift” Garcia is looking to buck that trend on Saturday.
In the 42nd and final bout of his memorable, 18-year career, Garcia (37-4, 21 KOs) is attempting to be promoter, main eventer and (hopefully) winner on the same night. And he’ll be looking to do so inside a venue that has long stood as a second home for the native of Philadelphia.
Nearly 13 years to the day that Garcia helped open the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, by headlining its first boxing event in a fourth-round knockout of Hall of Famer Erik Morales in their rematch, the 37-year-old Garcia will end his professional fighting journey in a 10-round junior middleweight bout against Queens native and 35-year-old journeyman Daniel Gonzalez (22-4-1, 7 KOs). The fight card, which airs as a pay-per-view on the streaming app Millions.co, is promoted by Garcia’s Swift Promotions.
“Not many fighters can say they have a home where they can go back to and fight but Brooklyn adopted me,” Garcia told CBS Sports last week. “I have built a great legacy at the Barclays Center. This is my 10th fight there and I always told everybody I want to go out like a boss. I want to go out promoting my own fight, having my own fighters on the undercard and, obviously, going out with my hand raised.”
The event gives Garcia an opportunity to extend his 7-2 record inside the Barclays Center, during a stretch that included wins over Zab Judah, Lamont Peterson and Paulie Malignaggi. Garcia also came up just short in a pair of high-profile welterweight title bouts inside the building against Keith Thurman (in a 2017 bout between unbeaten champions that aired live on CBS) and Shawn Porter.
For as many big stars attached to the Premier Boxing Champions banner over the last 10 years that have gone on to regularly headline at Barclays Center — from Adrien Broner and Deontay Wilder to Gervonta “Tank” Davis — none have seemed to produce the same exact atmosphere and excitement of Garcia’s biggest nights inside the building.
“I definitely feel like the atmosphere is different when I fight there,” Garcia said. “There is nothing like a Danny Garcia show at the Barclays Center. On [Saturday], I feel like it’s going to be another electrifying night for me and my fans.”
Gonzalez enters as a heavy betting underdog with a record of 2-2 since 2021. He also has a 2019 loss to former 140-pound titleholder Chris Algieri. Yet, despite the odds against him, Gonzalez made a point at the opening press conference to tell the media he’s here to win and that he will have no problem sending Garcia to retirement via knockout.
“One thing I learned, you can never out talk a New Yorker. They are the best talkers in the world,” Garcia said. “[Gonzalez] is going to do what he has to do to sell the fights but he has never been in there with anyone like Danny Garcia. Once he starts feeling the punches and seeing what I bring to the table, I think his whole mindset is going to change. I know he’s coming to fight but I’m preparing for whatever he brings to the table. I’m going to get this knockout.”
Garcia, who was stopped by Erislandy Lara in their 2024 middleweight title bout, is bringing to a close an exceptional career that saw him initially run the gauntlet at 140 pounds to become the best junior welterweight in the world before joining a star-studded group of elite welterweights, in which he held his own and even headlined a 2020 PPV in AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, in a loss to then-unbeaten Errol Spence Jr.
The enduring part of Garcia’s legacy, however, goes back to the early days of his pro career when he was considered anything but a fighter who would one day go on to retire with a legacy that could see his name added to Hall of Fame ballots. Garcia played the underdog role often in his biggest fights at 140 pounds and it took breakthrough upsets of Amir Khan in 2012 and Lucas Matthysse in 2013 to truly put “DSG” on the map as an established star.
“I feel like, in my heart, I was never the underdog because in the amateurs, when I won the U.S. championship in 2006, you couldn’t hand pick [opponents],” Garcia said. “In the amateurs, you have to fight the best every single day and I was No. 1 in the amateurs. For some reason, when I turned into the pros, I guess I went under the radar. I wasn’t hyped.
“When I came out and I beat Morales, Khan and Matthysse, everybody said, ‘Where the hell did this kid come from?’ I just didn’t get that superstar push from the beginning, I had to earn it. And I think that’s why I got the underdog look. I fought everybody they put in front of me because I thought I was better and I knew I could beat them. That’s just what I was taught.”
The final bout of Garcia’s fighting career also brings an end to the in-ring relationship he has had with father and lifetime trainer Angel Garcia. Whether he has served as Garcia’s brash mouthpiece to take the pressure off of him, his chief tactician in the corner or his biggest hypeman when times, behind the scenes, got hard, the Garcias proved that not all boxing father-son relationships need to be a volatile and problematic.
“I’m very proud of him. We started this journey together, we are going to finish together,” Garcia said about his father. “I saw my dad lose his jobs, he almost lost his marriage and he almost lost his life to cancer. He had a stroke. I have seen him go through everything and no matter what happened in his life, he always showed up to the gym because he loved it. He sacrificed a lot to be here, we both did, and I’m very proud of him.
“I feel like I had a hell of a career. I thank my father, Angel Garcia, for being on my side. I thank Al Haymon for getting me all those big fights. I fought 14 world champions, 10 fights at the Barclays Center. I feel like I put a lot of work in and I fought nothing but the best. That’s what boxing is all about. I won some and I lost some but at the end of the day, I’m still standing.”
Add Comment