Danny Garcia Happy To Be Back At Barclays Center, ‘New York Is The Place To Fight’
Danny ‘Swift’ Garcia isn’t holding back his excitement about returning to the Barclays Center where he has enjoyed the majority of the success of his career.
The former lineal junior welterweight champion and WBC welterweight titlist was in attendance during the recent boxing showdown at Barclays Center that featured Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis knocking out Rolando Romero.
The Barclays Center was buzzing with excitement as the crowd went berserk after Tank landed a straight left on Romero’s chin in the sixth round, shutting the lights out of latter. The reaction in the arena was enough to convince Garcia that he’d be the next to play at the Brooklyn venue.
“One of the main reasons why I went to the fight was, I wanted to get my head back in the game,” Garcia told BoxingScene.com.
“I wanted to get my head back in the atmosphere of big fights. I knew I was heading back to the Barclays Center. I wanted to feel that atmosphere. I wanted to see the fans and see what I’ve been missing.”
Following that May 28 PPV night, Garcia announced that he will make his junior middleweight debut against the former title challenger Jose Benavidez Jr. (27-1-1, 18 KOs) at the very same venue where he started his journey to the top.
Garcia (36-3, 21 KOs) first fought at Barclays Center in 2012 where he out-foxed the Mexican icon, Erik Morales to retain his WBA and WBC World Super Lightweight title. Garcia also held the record for the largest live gate at the venue when he faced Keith Thurman back in March 2017.
Though Garcia came short on the night, the PPV itself was a huge success generating $2,301,129 in ticket sales. This record was recently crushed by Davis and Romero, which generated $4,496,710 from 16,282 tickets sold.
Garcia is 6-2 at the Barclays and has had his moments at this ten-year-old venue, which primarily serves as the home of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets.
“I definitely went for motivational purposes. It was great motivation and a great night of boxing. I want to provide the same thing for my fans on July 30,” Garcia added.
“I was the first [main event] at Barclays. I’ve been building the fan base there for the last ten years,” noted Garcia. “New York, there’s a lot of Puerto Rican fans, a lot of hip hop fans. There’s all different types of fans, diversity. New York is the place to fight and build a fan base. They love me, they’ve accepted me and I’m just happy.”