Notebook: Danny Garcia returns, re-charged and ready to go at 154 vs. Benavidez Jr.
Top Rank signs Estrada; Quick hits; Show and tell
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Danny Garcia has been enjoying life for the past 19 months since his last fight, a decision loss challenging unified welterweight titlist Errol Spence Jr. in December 2020.
Garcia, with a young family and having earned many millions of dollars, figured it was a good time to relax for a bit and enjoy the fruits of the labor of a 15-year career in which he has won world titles at junior welterweight and welterweight and faced many of the best names of his time.
But he never intended to retire. Rather, he wanted to re-charge his batteries and look to make a title run at junior middleweight, where Jermell Charlo presently reigns as undisputed champion.
“It’s been 19 months since I’ve been in the ring and I’ve been enjoying my life in and out of the ring. I’ve spent time with my family, but I've still been staying in the gym the whole time,” Garcia said. “I trained with young guns Chris Colbert and Stephen Fulton Jr. To be honest, it feels like I never left.”
Garcia will get back into the ring for real when he makes his 154-pound debut against Jose Benavidez Jr. in the 12-round main event of a Premier Boxing Champions tripleheader on Saturday (Showtime, 9 p.m. ET) at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, where Garcia will be fighting for the ninth time since he was in the building’s first main event in a rematch with Erik Morales in 2012.
“We had a tremendous training camp in Philly,” Garcia said of his hometown. “We’ve done everything we were supposed to do and my body feels great. I knew that I was coming up to 154 pounds, so I built more muscle. But most importantly I feel good mentally. Once Danny Garcia is mentally and physically strong, no one can touch him. I’ve proved that before. I’m just excited to be back at Barclays Center.
“I’m excited to be on this card with a lot of young fighters. It’s tremendous and I can’t wait. The ‘Danny Garcia Show’ is back. It feels good to be back. I’m back because I love to fight. I’m a fighter and I love boxing. I knew once I took that break, that I’d come back at 154 pounds. A lot of people don’t know how I’ve been squeezing my body down. I think people will be surprised about how strong I am.”
The time off, Garcia said, did a world of good for him.
“The time off was very important. After you’ve been fighting for a long time — I’ve been fighting world champions for the last 10 years — I realized that my body felt great, but my mind felt foggy,” he said. “It felt tired. It didn’t feel sharp. I knew that I needed my mind to rest, have some fun, and spend some time with my family. I needed time to enjoy everything that I worked so hard for, start to miss the game of boxing and then come back strong. I think that’s what I’ve done.”
Garcia (36-3, 21 KOs), 34, whose only losses were to Spence and very close, debatable decisions to Shawn Porter and Keith Thurman in welterweight title fights (both at Barclays Center), would eventually like to challenge PBC stablemate Charlo, or whoever has the junior middleweight titles, but first up is Benavidez.
“I want to chase a new dream. I want to be a three-division champion,” Garcia said. “I have the skill and I have the will and I’m not going to let anyone take it away from me. I’m going to go out there and have fun and do what I do best.”
The additional weight will not be an issue, Garcia said.
“It’s not about weight, it’s about skill,” he said. “You don’t become a three-time world champion because you’re just bigger. It’s about skill and technique and that’s what we bring to the table. The only goal is to get this ‘W’ on Saturday. Then we’ll start setting new goals. I expect Benavidez to come to fight. Other than that, just expect me to do my thing.
“I’m going to be really strong on Saturday. This is a good weight class for me, especially at this point in my career. There’s a lot of good fighters in the division for me to fight. I have more strength, more stamina. I’ve done more sparring because I’m at this new weight class.”
In Benavidez (27-1-1, 18 KOs), 30, of Phoenix, Garcia is facing an opponent who also has spent most of his career at junior welterweight and welterweight. Benavidez, who is the older brother of interim super middleweight titlist David Benavidez, however, is 0-1-1 in his last two bouts in a career marred by a serious leg injury from a gunshot wound.
In 2018, Terence Crawford knocked him out in a welterweight title fight. Benavidez didn’t fight again until a generous majority draw with Francisco Emanuel Torres in his most recent bout in November.
“Benavidez is a tough fighter. He has some skills,” Garcia said. “Obviously, he’s 27-1-1 and he’s fought some good fighters. I expect the best of him. I want to knock him out but if the knockout doesn’t come, then we’re ready for 12 rounds. I just want to go in there and give the fans a great show.”
Also on the broadcast are two 10-round bouts:
Popular Polish heavyweight Adam Kownacki (20-2, 15 KOs), 33, of Brooklyn, will try to bounce back from back-to-back knockout loses to Robert Helenius, against Ali Eren Demirezen (16-1, 12 KOs), 32, a 2016 Turkish Olympian, in the co-feature.
Fast-rising junior welterweight Gary Antuanne Russell (15-0, 15 KOs), 25, a 2016 U.S. Olympian from Capitol Heights, Maryland, will face former junior lightweight and lightweight titlist Rances Barthelemy (29-1-1, 15 KOs), 36, a Cuba native fighting out of Las Vegas.
Top Rank signs Estrada
Top Rank has made a rare foray into women’s boxing, announcing the signing of WBA strawweight titlist Seniesa “Super Bad” Estrada to a multi-year promotional deal on Thursday.
Top Rank promotes only one other woman in its vast stable, unified junior lightweight champion Mikaela Mayer, who has become friendly with Estrada.
“Seniesa Estrada is one of the world’s premier fighters and is well on her way to becoming a superstar in the sport,” Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said. “She is an engaging young woman who brings unbridled passion into the ring every time she fights. I am ecstatic that she has joined our tremendous roster of world champions.”
The 30-year-old Estrada (22-0, 9 KOs), of Los Angeles, had been with Golden Boy Promotions but they could not reach terms on a contract extension. Estrada had interest from Matchroom Boxing, which is heavily involved in women’s boxing, but she ultimately went with Top Rank, whose alliance with ESPN will bring her far more exposure than had she signed with Matchroom Boxing or remained with Golden Boy. Both of those companies have their events streamed exclusively on DAZN.
“I am extremely excited to be part of the Top Rank family,” Estrada said. “I’m eager to get back in the ring and continue where I left off, winning world titles, putting on exciting fights, and unifying in three divisions. Thank you, Top Rank, for giving me the opportunity to represent women’s boxing alongside Mikaela Mayer. There is no better timing then now to be with a promotional company like Top Rank and fight on such a great platform to show the world that women’s boxing is here to stay. I’m ready to shine.”
A pro since 2011, Estrada won the WBA strawweight title by unanimous decision from Anabel Ortiz in March 2021 and has made one defense, a fourth-round knockout of Maria Micheo in December.
In between those two bouts, Estrada moved up to junior flyweight and dethroned Tenaki Tsunami by one-sided decision last July but later vacated.
However, Estrada’s most notable victory came in November 2019, when she won a ninth-round technical decision over rival and then-unbeaten U.S. Olympic bronze medalist Marlen Esparza on the Canelo Alvarez-Sergey Kovalev undercard in Las Vegas. The fight was halted after the ninth round because of a bad cut Esparza suffered due to an accidental head butt.
“I am thrilled that Seniesa has signed with Top Rank and will have the opportunity to showcase her talents to the largest possible audience,” said Jerry Casarez, Estrada’s manager. “The best is yet to come.”
Quick hits
Golden Boy announced that it will have a “Fight Night on DAZN” card on Sept. 8 (9 p.m. ET) in San Jose, Costa Rica, where IBF women’s strawweight titlist Yokasta Valle (25-2, 9 KOs), who recently signed with Golden Boy, will fight in her home country in a unification fight with WBO titlist Thi Thu Nhi Nguyen (5-0, 1 KOs) of Vietnam. The card will also stream live on Golden Boy’s YouTube channel. “I know this fight is going to be a war of champion versus champion, unifying world titles, all or nothing,” Valle said. “The only difference is that she is going to have to come to my house to face a ‘Yoka’ more motivated than ever.”
Former unified junior middleweight titlist Julian Williams (27-3-1, 16 KOs), 32, of Philadelphia, was due to box on the non-televised portion of the Danny Garcia-Jose Benavidez Jr. card on Saturday night, but he is off the show. A PBC spokesman told Fight Freaks Unite he is off because a suitable opponent could not be found. Williams has lost two fights in a row, a fifth-round knockout in his hometown to Jeison Rosario that cost him his belts in January 2020 and a 10-round split decision to Vladimir Hernandez in a major upset in October on the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder III undercard in Las Vegas.
Former junior middleweight titlist Liam Smith (31-3-1, 18 KOs), 34, will have a Liverpool, England homecoming fight against Tanzania native Hassan Mwakinyo (20-2, 14 KOs), 27, in the main event on Sept. 3 (Sky Sports in the U.K.) at the M&S Bank Arena, Boxxer, which signed Smith earlier this month, announced. Smith is coming off a strong performance in a 10th-round knockout of former two-division titlist Jessie Vargas on April 30 on the Katie Taylor-Amanda Serrano card in New York. “We were delighted to sign Liam Smith, so there is no better place for him to make his debut with us than in his home city of Liverpool,” Boxxer CEO Ben Shalom said. “Liam is a man on a mission. He wants to win a second world title and there are big fights coming his way.”
Show and tell
Seventeen months after Mike Tyson scored a 49-second knockout of Clifford Etienne in what would turn out to be the final victory of his storied career, he returned to the ring mainly because of financial reasons — he was $38 million in debt. Tyson was matched with England’s unheralded Danny Williams on Showtime PPV in what was expected to be another one-sided knockout victory. With a win, he had a deal worth at least $80 million waiting from Top Rank and HBO, but it didn’t quite work out like that with Tyson no longer remotely close to the overwhelming force he once was. In a fight I covered at ringside for USA Today, they met at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Kentucky — the same venue where Muhammad Ali turned pro in 1960 — where a crowd of 17,273 turned out to see Tyson.
He started quickly, as usual, and hurt Williams in the opening round. Tyson, who was trained by Freddie Roach for the fight, actually looked pretty good for the first couple of rounds before noticeably slowing down as the much bigger Williams began to land shots. Tyson, as we would later learn, tore a ligament in his left knee in the first round that required surgery. In the fourth round, it was all Williams, who landed around 25 unanswered punches, including a mammoth right hand that sent Tyson reeling into the ropes and to the mat, where he sat leaning against the ropes with blood streaking down his face from a cut near his right eye. He didn't appear interested in referee Dennis Alfred, who gave him a generously long count before counting him out with nine seconds left in the round. Gone was the big Top Rank/HBO deal and any prayer that Tyson would ever again be near the top of boxing. He would fight just once more and get knocked out by Kevin McBride 11 months later. Tyson-Williams was on July 30, 2004 — 18 years ago on Saturday. Here is a scarce site poster in my collection.
Garcia photo: Amanda Westcott/Showtime
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Estrada is one of the most entertaining female fighters out there, alongside Marshall. She also has the personality to potentially become the face of women's boxing. Just two things potentially not in her favor: Age and Weight Class. Those aside, I think she's the full package.