Garcia-Khan: Re-watched. Opinions please.

[Sage84]

If you want a small amount of controversy, i dont think it would need a big adjustment from Khan to beat Garcia... whether he has mental ability to do even a small change is debatable...

He sticks to basics, and never throws an uppercut ever again hell give Garcia a world of trouble. Oh and mix up the attack even a tiny bit to throw off timing.

I agree mate. I do think Khan is capable of winning but I'm not sure he is smart enough and disciplined enough to stick to a game plan.

He completely forgets about defense while he is attacking, he throws his left hook with his right hand down by his side and as soon as he throws any type of uppercut his chin is hanging out, its like he is winding up his next punch while he throws his first one. Its odd.

[yoz]

Khan was beating him, for sure; but Garcia's shot wasn't lucky. He threw 'the punch' several times, albeit unsuccessfully, before the KO.

[JuanRakan]

There has been a bit of a divide on the forum with regards to the Khan-Garcia fight. Some believe Garcia landed a lucky punch and Khan was boxing his head off and some believe that Garcia was starting to get Khans timing down and the KO was coming. I would like some opinions and sensible comments, bias fan boys need not post.

When I first watched the fight I believed that Khan was boxing his head off, I thought he was on his way to a UD, maybe even a stoppage on cuts. Khan won the first 2rds without a doubt.

After reading the forum over the last couple of days I decided to watch the fight again, a little more carefully this time. After the second watch I'm now in the camp that believes Garcia was starting to figure Khan out. If you watch the fight minute by minute Garcia was constantly improving, in the first minute of the first round Khan couldnt miss Garcia with his right hand, towards the end of the round Garcia had started to adjust to the speed the right hand wasn't hitting as much. Manny Steward even commented at the end of the first and part way through the second that Garcia had figured out Khan's right hand.

If you decide to watch the fight again pay attention to how many times Garcia was starting to catch Khan with his looping counters, he didn't catch him clean until that third round, Garcia wasn't/isn't the most accurate of fighters but he knew what he needed to do. He through those strong counters over and over, at the end of the exchanges it was a Garcia counter that was knocking Khan off balance. I don't think they were necessarily hurting Khan, quite a lot landed on the gloves, but you could tell how strong they were, Khan stumbled quite a few times and had to reset.

I personally think the change came in towards the end of the second and during the third when Garcia noticeably started working the body, Khan was less active in the third round and I believe he may have looked a little hurt, I'm not sure which punch hurt him (or if it was the body work over all) but Khan's elbows were definitely noticeably more tucked in during the third, he was also circling for much longer before attacking while Garcia held the centre of the ring.

Personally, after that re-watch I can see what people have been saying, the KO was coming. Garcia was pretty underrated, to me he proved hes a smart fighter, even when Khan was hurt he didn't go mad and punch himself out, he took his time, that's the sign of a good finisher.

I know it's been done to death, but this decision has reared its head again recently so I thought I'd get everyone's opinion in the same thread.

The biggest reason for the downplay of Garcia's win is that he doesnt fight like a traditional champion-level fighter. He loops his punches, hes a bit slow, etc. But when you aggregate all of skills and intangibles necessary to win some belts and fight competitively against the top guys, he seems to have it. Danny seems to have a good chin, some serious power, stanima and B+ at everything else like balance, speed, footwork, etc. Hes definetely a tricky fighter to analyze. In regards to Khan, he will continue to have serious issues when trying to fight the top guys because most of them can really crack. He is not a naturally defensive fighter; coming up in the amateur game he is inclined to throw a ton of punches and outpoint his opponents as oppose to a dude like Garcia who is looking for the best way to hurt . Khan needs to be strategic and fight guys like Bradley, Malignaggi, Peterson, etc. talented but not the hardest punchers. Danny is a going to be a serious problem for Khan no matter what he does in training because of his chin and Dannys persistant punching power. He can make it much more competitive however if he perfects his jab and improves his defense a bit.

[bojangles1987]

Garcia obviously timed him. You just need to look at his performance from round to round, and what he was landing. It was impressive work by Garcia.

[Shabba Rank$]

Garcia's began timing him in the 2nd round on. If you watch the fight muted without HBO's ******ed ass bias commentary, anybody should be able to see that. Danny started to time him with his looping right in the 2nd round and even hurt Khan like once or twice in the round. What a beautiful left hook in the 3rd.

[illmaticfighter]

garcia obviously hits hard i noticed this in the holt n morales fight. he was head hunting ealy but those body shots made khan lazy they obviously hurt him and danny was finally able to catch the head.

[FrankieBruno]

What i saw after re-watching Khan hardly threw his jab, he was going for the knockout from round1, this was a big mistake on Khans part. He stood back to long, he should have kept his jab going, Garcia doesnt cope well with it. Instead Khan goes for these pointless jabs to the body, which was just ****** as it leaves him open up top


Khan did win rounds 1 and 2, but compared to the fight against Molina, Khan looked slow, he punch rate was not high, he threw the jab a couple of times and he went for this ****** shots to the body

The fight changed when Garcia started going for the body, to which Khan was left confused and he got hit with those hooks.

In my opinion if Khan had kept throwing his jab keeping Garcia at bay and as a measuring stick he could have caused all kinds of problems for Garcia

[Roy Jones Jnr]

Khan did win both the first 2 rounds IMO but nowhere near as widely and easily as some people make out to be, even in those 2 rounds Garcia was landing and was millimetres away from landing some big bombs.

Garcia was sooner or later gonna tag him with one of those bombs that were gonna cause some real damage, which he did.

Another thing to look out for whilst your all rewatching the fight, take a look at some of the shots that Khan ate without going down. He took some clean bombs even before Garcia got him with that shot on the neck, then some more huge punches when he was on jelly legs.

And there's not one single sane boxing fan i know of who called that a lucky shot, so i don't even know why people bother bringing that up.

[heihaci]

It was a case of timing beating speed.Also, poor punch selection Khan was throwing an uppercut from the worng distance!

[MarcoHooker]

Khan was fighting really dumb and not giving any respect at all to Garcia

That being said I still think it was a lucky shot