By Ryan Burton
BoxingScene.com recently caught up with Kenny Porter father/trainer of former welterweight champion "Showtime" Shawn Porter who faces WBA welterweight kingpin Keith Thurman on March 12th. The bout will be a special edition of Showtime Championship Boxing aired on CBS.
Both Porters were in attendance for Danny Garcia's unanimous decision victory over Robert Guerrero on January 23rd in Los Angeles, California. Garcia picked up Floyd Mayweather Jr.'s recently vacated WBC belt with the win.
The elder Porter said a unification clash against Garcia (32-0, 18KOs) is at the top of his wish list after the Thurman fight.
"Yes we expect that would be the direction to go but whether Danny accepts that fight we shall see especially when his dad said that Shawn and Keith shouldn't be fighting. I definitely don't think they want to fight Keith or Shawn," said Porter in reference to a recent interview in which Garcia's father Angel questioned the timing of the Thurman-Porter fight.
Angel said that the two young fighters should be accumulating wealth and let the fight simmer for a couple more years. He also suggested that they should fight some "Rod Salka" type opponents in reference to his son's heavily criticized 2014 fight. Kenny said that he would much rather see the big fights happen now while his son is in his prime and while the fights have more meaning.
"Rod Salka is a good fighter. I like Rod Salka a lot but we are not going to fight Rod Salka. I think he can do some things but we aren't fighting him. For them to name Salka and try to lessen him or suggest that we take lesser fighters to build up to a bigger day, I don't want my kid fighting when he is 35. He just turned 28 and is in his prime. The competition is what is driving us," Porter told BoxingScene.com.
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