I rarely get interested in watching fights. Unless I bet a few bucks on a match or if my patriotic feelings flare, I just love to watch and I cheer for the performance. I don’t need a movie about bad guys versus good guys in my prize matches. There’s enough of that in the real world, outside of the ring.
However, what sometimes happens is a guy/girl wins over me when a fight goes on. Usually, that happens when the upset starts to flare up.
That’s what happened to Hector Luis Garcia when he started competing against Chris Colbert this past February, slowly taking over the competition and beating his prized young opponent’s fighting pride.
I’ve seen Garcia fight before– just three other times– and honestly, I don’t think much of him. He’s very tough. I know him with a pedigree of amateurs, with over 300 matches. I know that he participated in the 2016 Olympic Games, representing his native Dominican Republic. I just don’t think he’s going to become anything other than a name on Colbert’s increasingly lengthy résumé.
Colbert is SO MUCH good– or, at least, he looks VERY GOOD going into battle with Garcia. “Primetime” is a promising blue chip stock on the cusp of the giants. The Brooklyn native was actually said to be fighting for a world title the night he faced Garcia. However, reigning WBA super featherweight champion Roger Gutierrez contracted COVID-19 less than three weeks before the match and had to withdraw. News agencies announced that Colbert’s world title match against Gutierrez would be pushed back to April. Everyone was sure that Colbert would beat his late replacement, Garcia.
What was supposed to be a virtuoso performance by Colbert turned out to be a breakout performance by Garcia.
Polite, confident and perfectly working to his strengths, Garcia almost immediately took control of the contest and never gave up. By the championship round, Chris Colbert, who was rapidly becoming a star and completely pre-match, had given up all hope of winning and was riding his bike, just trying to avoid more punishment. Having been heavily relegated in the seventh round, the most popular team reached the final ring, but lost eleven of the twelve rounds on all three judges’ scorecards.
Six months later, Garcia beat Gutierrez to win the WBA belt, in a performance that was almost as dominant overall as the one against Colbert.
The 31-year-old male tennis player will now face Gervonta “Tank” Davis for Davis’ WBA lightweight title. One win would complete the Wild Boxing Cinderella story and put Garcia right into the elite class of the 135 lb weight class.
In reality, however, it’s only been up to this point– in the main event of the pay-per-view card at Capital One Arena in Washington DC against one of the biggest boxing stars, in an attempt to become two-division world champion — victory is enough. In less than a year, Garcia went from THIS almost unknown place. It’s been a remarkable 11 months run by anyone’s standards.
The odds are definitely against him this Saturday. No one would blink if he was blown away by a big, early blow. Tank Davis is at the top of his game and is widely regarded as one of the heaviest boxers in the sport.
But lately Davis has had a lot of distractions outside of the ring. There was a domestic assault arrest in late December. There was a hit-and-run trial in February. He quit Mayweather Promotions to work as a free agent. He also has a big-budget blockbuster about the Ryan Garcia match scheduled for April.
It would be tempting if Tank ignored Garcia this Saturday, just as a world champion Colbert skipped Garcia last February. And, as we’ve seen, Garcia can fully capitalize on that opportunity.
The man from San Juan de la Maguana in the Dominican Republic is not joking. He is all business. That’s why you have to love a guy like Hector Luis Garcia, win or lose.
