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Sergio Garcia gave himself much more credit than two judges afforded him for the work he feels he put in during his last fight.
The Spanish junior middleweight contender considers his 12-round WBC elimination match with Sebastian Fundora to have been a close fight. California-based judges Lou Moret (118-110) and Alejandro Rochin (117-111) scored 10 and nine rounds, respectively, for Fundora in a fight that appeared much more competitive than that.
The other judge, Connecticut’s Tom Carusone, scored it 115-113 for Fundora, who believes he won that largely uneventful contest convincingly on the Gervonta Davis-Isaac Cruz undercard December 5 at Staples Center in Los Angeles. Garcia, who will fight Tony Harrison on Saturday night in Las Vegas, suffered the first defeat of his professional career against Fundora.
“I thought the fight was certainly closer than what some of the judges thought,” Garcia told BoxingScene.com. “But I don’t dwell on the negative. I try to remain in the positive, which is that I put up a great fight and the fans were seemingly pleased with what they saw. They liked my style, they liked my attitude, what I achieved in that fight. And that’s just gonna be a lesson that I take moving forward, to where I plan to do even better on Saturday night and give the fans even more of a show when they see me fight on April 9th.”
Carusone’s card was indicative of what CompuBox’s unofficial punch-counters compiled during the Fundora-Garcia fight.
CompuBox credited Fundora (18-0-1, 12 KOs) with landing only 24 more punches overall than Garcia (187-of-717 to 163-of-778). The margin was even slimmer in power punches (168-of-468 to 159-of-544) because Garcia landed only four jabs in his entire fight against a lanky left-handed opponent who stands 6-foot-6 (19-of-249 to 4-of-234).
Fundora’s victory vaulted the Coachella, California, native into a 12-round fight Saturday night against Erickson Lubin (24-1, 17 KOs) for the WBC interim super welterweight championship. Whoever emerges victorious from their “Showtime Championship Boxing” main event will also become the WBC’s mandatory challenger for the winner of the Jermell Charlo-Brian Castano rematch May 14 in Carson, California.
Showtime will also air the second bout between Houston’s Charlo (34-1-1, 18 KOs) and Argentina’s Castano (17-0-2, 12 KOs) from Dignity Health Sports Park. Charlo and Castano, who fought to a 12-round split draw last July 17 at AT&T Center in San Antonio, will compete again for Charlo’s IBF, WBA and WBC championships and Castano’s WBO belt.
Garcia (33-1, 14 KOs) and Detroit’s Harrison (28-3-1, 21 KOs) are set to meet in Showtime’s 10-round co-feature Saturday night from Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. If Garcia and Fundora win, the 29-year-old Garcia doesn’t expect to get another shot at Fundora for quite some time.
“He and I share the same promoter now,” Garcia said in reference to Sampson Lewkowicz. “He has big plans for both of us. Would I like to have the rematch with Fundora? Yes. But the thing is, now that we have the same promoter, it might be that for the foreseeable future Fundora and I might just have different paths in our careers, until we meet again someday.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.