Thurman: Danny Garcia is Slow, I'll Be Too Much To Handle

By Edward Chaykovsky, photo by Ryan Hafey

WBA welterweight champion Keith "One Time" Thurman (27-0, 22KOs) is very confident that he's on another level when it comes to Danny "Swift" Garcia (33-0, 19 KOs), who holds the WBC championship.

Last Saturday night in Philadelphia, Garcia dropped and stopped Colombia's Samuel Vargas (25-3-1, 13 KOs) on his way to a seventh round TKO victory in the main event of Premier Boxing Champions on Spike from Temple University's Liacouras Center in Philadelphia.

The fight was a non-title tuneup, but the victory itself set up a unification with Thurman for March 4th of next year.

Thurman has been out of the ring since June, when he defeated Shawn Porter at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. He plans to have a twelve week camp for the fight with Garcia to compensate for the long layoff.

After Garcia's fight was over, Thurman went face to face with his upcoming opponent.

"I have no problem being up in his face, in Philly, with his whole team and his whole crowd backing him. You know, it actually pumps me up and shows all of those Danny Garcia fans how not 'swift' he really is," Thurman told Premier Boxing Champions.

"My career right now, this fight is everything. I've always wanted to add more than one belt to my goal of having three belts to be the unified welterweight champion of the world. So for me, really my goal, dreams and my ambitions - this is just one step closer to making all that come true."

Thurman sees a lot of flaws in Garcia's style.

"You know, Danny's punches I think he really commits to them. I feel like he lacks speed and I'm really looking forward to hopefully expose that. Keith Thurman is another caliber of fighter. I believe that he's never been in with opposition like myself and on March 4th I'm going to be too much to handle," Thurman said.