By Keith Idec
NEW YORK — Negotiations for the highly anticipated Danny Garcia-Lucas Matthysse fight are ongoing, but their WBC 140-pound championship match might not be scheduled for Sept. 7, as originally planned.
“I’m looking at a different date,” promoter Richard Schaefer said Thursday. “We’ll see what we’re going to do.”
The site of the fight hasn’t been determined, either. It initially appeared headed to Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., when making a doubleheader out of bouts between Philadelphia’s Garcia (26-0, 15 KOs) and Argentina’s Matthysse (34-2, 32 KOs) and Washington native Lamont Peterson (31-2-1, 16 KOs) and Las Vegas’ Zab Judah (42-8, 29 KOs, 2 NC) was a possibility.
That site made less sense once it became clear a Peterson-Judah fight would not be made. A venue in the Los Angeles area also was mentioned as a possibility for Garcia-Matthysse on Sept. 7, but popular Mexican middleweight contender Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (46-1-1, 32 KOs, 1 NC) will box Brian Vera (23-6, 14 KOs), of Austin, Texas, on Sept. 7 at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Chavez is a draw at the gate and on television for HBO, so moving Garcia-Matthysse, which will be broadcast by Showtime, to another date makes sense for numerous reasons. Though the date hasn’t been determined, Schaefer seemed confident after the Paulie Malignaggi-Adrien Broner news conference Thursday at Barclays Center that the Garcia-Matthysse match will be made.
“It’s looking good, but I’m not done yet,” said Schaefer, chief executive officer for Golden Boy Promotions, which represents Garcia and Matthysse. “When you make those big fights, you need to work on it, get people on the same page, go a little bit, take a little step back, then go again. I’m in the process, but I would hope within the next week or so I have something to announce.”
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
