As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about Showtime Boxing’s demise, reports of a December 9th show featuring Keith Thurman and Danny Garcia have been swirling for a while. Dan Rafael’s postmortem claims the show will “likely” be a PPV at the MGM Grand and names Eimantas Stanionis and Erislandy Lara as possible foes for “One Time” and “Swift.”
Thurman (30-1, 22 KO) vs Stanionis (14-0, 9 KO) would be a genuinely great matchup. Stanionis deserves a big name after the Vergil Ortiz Jr debacle that’s kept him out of action since April of last year, while Thurman would theoretically be right in the mix for a title shot if he claimed Stanionis’ secondary title.
That said, Thurman has been attached to so many fizzled fights that it’s best not to get excited until and unless they’re actually in the ring together.
Lara (29-3-3, 17 KO) vs Garcia (37-3, 21 KO) has theoretically been in the works since May, when the WBA gave the newly elevated middleweight champ clearance to fight Garcia on August 5th with the expectation that he then face Michael Zerafa within 120 days. Neither of those things happened and none of the parties involved have said a word about it, so who knows what’s happened.
Wonder if they’re still planning a 155-lb catchweight. It’s the WBA thing to do.