By Ryan Burton
On March 4th the highly anticipated welterweight showdown between unbeaten WBA champion Keith Thurman (27-0) and undefeated WBC champion Danny Garcia (33-0) will take place at a venue still to be determined. Either Showtime or CBS will air the high stakes battle.
Thurman last fought in June when he won a close decision over Shawn Porter that was watched by over 3 million viewers on CBS, while Garcia followed up an unanimous decision victory over Robert Guerrero in January, where he captured the vacant WBC belt, with a 7th round stoppage of Samuel Vargas last month in a tuneup bout.
Oddsmakers opened Thurman as close to a 2.5-1 favorite over Garcia - but former WBO welterweight champion Jessie Vargas believes that Garcia knows what it takes to pull out victories in these types of fights and is rolling with the Philadelphia native.
Garcia was viewed as the underdog when he faced Amir Khan and Lucas Matthysse in past high profile fights at junior welterweight. He knocked out Khan in four rounds and won a dominant twelve round unanimous decision over Matthysse.
"I think it's a good fight but I think Danny Garcia wins. He's just been tested a bit more. He's been able to dig deep on certain occasions. Maybe not against Mauricio Herrera but on other occasions he was able to dig deep and ultimately get the win when it was an even match like against (Lamont) Peterson or (Lucas) Matthysse," Vargas told BoxingScene.com.
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