Opinion: Danny Garcia’s Catch 22

It’s a Catch 22 for Danny Garcia.

His welterweight debut against Paulie Malignaggi at Premier Boxing Champions on ESPN is of the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t variety. Honestly, this is peculiar matchmaking at its finest. When it comes to PBC, making sense of the Garcia-Malignaggi pairing is quite interesting. If the promotion is looking to make Garcia a big star, this might be the wrong way to do it.

For the slightly educated boxing fans in a “What have you done for me lately?” society, Malignaggi (33-6) is just a name for Garcia (30-0) to run over. Considering that Malignaggi was contemplating retirement after his last fight, where Shawn Porter ran through him in a devastating fourth-round TKO in April 2014, the stock on “The Magic Man” has fallen considerably in the eyes of fight fans. Many feel Malignaggi is a name for Garcia to put on his resume, as they expect him to win and to look good doing it.

However, upon closer inspection, this might be a terrible fight for the Philly fighter known as “Swift.” Garcia has been on the cusp for quite some time, too long if you ask some boxing pundits. Ever since he beat Lucas Matthysse on the undercard of Floyd Mayweather-Marcos Maidana, there was an expectation that Garcia would be thrust into the limelight as a possible heir to Mayweather’s throne.

That certainly has not been the case.

Since the victory, Garcia has remained unbeaten but has not looked quite as good as advertised. In his follow-up match, many thought he lost to Mauricio Herrera, but he somehow managed to walk away with a majority decision. He struggled mightily with the crafty Herrera and was seemingly out-boxed. Garcia followed that up with a grotesque mismatch with Rod Salka that ended in a second-round knockout that nobody cared to see. More recently, Garcia again struggled with the boxing of Lamont Peterson and barely won yet another majority decision “Havoc” could have taken away if he had decided to step on the gas a round earlier. Aside from being underwhelming, Garcia fought his last two fights at a catchweight as he meticulously crawled up from the 140-pound division to become a true welterweight.

So here he is in a fight with Malignaggi. If you haven’t been paying attention, Malignaggi does the exact thing with which Garcia struggles: pure application of the Sweet Science. Even though the 34-year-old is far from a knockout artist -- only seven of his 33 wins have come by stoppage -- Malignaggi has been known for is exceptional boxing ability. His movement and accuracy have caused trouble for many of his opponents. Aside from the Porter loss, Malignaggi looked excellent in beating Zab Judah and arguably should have earned a decision against Adrien Broner in 2013.

The trained eye realizes that Malignaggi is far from tailor-made for Garcia. If the Brooklyn, N.Y., fighter is on his A-game, he could end up making Garcia looking quite amateurish when the two step into the ring at the Barclays Center in Malignaggi’s backyard.

Perhaps Al Haymon and the good folks at Premier Boxing Champions are aware that Garcia cannot be carried along against lighter opposition much longer while be given the benefit of the doubt on some very narrow decisions; or maybe they know that Garcia is much better under pressure and have elected to pit him against a master of boxing to see whether he will excel or wilt. If Garcia ever wants to be known as a pound-for-pound great, he’s going to have to neutralize opponents such as Malignaggi with ease. The naysayers have come out in droves for the past few years with the unflattering nickname of “cherry picker” on social media, and all Garcia has managed to do is substantiate their claims that he just might be overrated.

Unfortunately, a Garcia win will silence nobody. No matter how good he looks, if he is unable to get Malignaggi out of there as impressively as Porter did last year, the cries of the skeptics will only grow louder. Should Malignaggi somehow pull out the victory, you can call a halt to any hype Garcia had.

No matter what, Garcia must find a way to look good in this peculiar matchup. If he wins, he needs to call out one of the elite welterweights for his next fight. If he’s not facing Porter, Maidana, Kell Brook, Keith Thurman, Timothy Bradley or Manny Pacquiao next, then we have to wonder if Garcia will ever strive to be as good as advertised or if he’s simply being protected enough to put over another name.

Andreas Hale is a content producer for Jay Z's LifeandTimes.com and editor-in-chief of PremierWuzHere.com, as well as a frequent Sherdog.com columnist. Check out his archive here.