The Night The Swarmer Tweaked His Style To Great Effect: Porter-Garcia Redux

This past weekend boxing fans were treated to an exciting action-packed WBC welterweight title bout between former titlists Shawn Porter 29-2-1 (17) and Danny Garcia 34-2 (20). Porter won a 12-round unanimous decision (116-112, 115-113 twice). Scoring two rounds even, I also too saw it for Porter (116-114).

Prior to the bout it was said in this space that Porter had to fight as the attacker to win, and he also needed to stay contained and not get wild. Never did I imagine Porter could box enough from outside to befuddle Garcia and then pounce on him like a wounded mountain lion just when Garcia determined that he needed to go from counter-puncher to attacker. But that’s what transpired for most of the 12 rounds of the fight.

What Porter did during the Garcia bout will go under the radar in most boxing circles but it shouldn’t. As stated in the preview, Porter stylistically is an attacker or sometimes labeled a swarmer. In other words, he’s a fighter who must get inside and force the action because most attackers lack height and reach. It’s the hardest style to perfect as a fighter and historically there have only been four truly great swarmers in heavyweight history (Dempsey, Marciano, Frazier and Tyson). Former light heavyweight champ Dwight Muhammad Qawi was another terrific attacker. But he was an anomaly because he had long arms and had a good jab. The knock on swarmers — and it’s mostly true — is they can’t fight going back. When forced to, they’re like a fish out of water.

Prior to Porter out-boxing and out-working Danny Garcia, few swarmers come to mind who changed their style and were successful versus a particular opponent. Roberto Duran did it against Marvin Hagler. Instead of pursuing Hagler who was at his best counter-punching, Duran forced Hagler to come to him as he backed away and countered Marvin and because of that Duran went 15 rounds with Hagler and lost a close and competitive fight. Humberto Gonzalez, who was a very tough attacker, was knocked out in the seventh round by Michael Carbajal for the light flyweight title the first time they met. They fought twice more and instead of bringing the heat, Gonzalez boxed and countered the now pressing Carbajal and won the decision in both their second and third meetings.

Marco Antonio Barrera, who usually fought as the attacker, lured Prince Naseem Hamed to move into him and then countered and frustrated the hard punching Hamed on his way to winning a unanimous decision in what was an upset at the time…..and lastly, middleweight champ Gene Fullmer, who was a crude attacker, defeated Carmen Basilio, who was the consummate pressure fighter, by stepping away and countering him and stopped him twice in title defenses.

This past weekend Porter showed he’s also a good athlete. Knowing that Garcia was counting on him pushing the fight, Porter started off in a measured manner circling and moving back and slowly inducing Garcia to come after him. And when he did, Porter jabbed and went to both the head and body inside without getting wild. In the process of moving away, Porter found that Garcia sometimes gets a little lazy in there and when he sensed that, he opened up and unloaded on him. Then he’d go back to boxing on the move, changing directions from time to time. And from about the eighth round on, once he realized how much Garcia doesn’t like to lead, Porter mixed his attack beautifully. It was almost as if he sensed when Garcia thought they were going to box, Shawn fought, and when Danny became more urgent, Porter sometimes traded and other times jabbed him and stepped away or around, totally confusing Garcia.

Porter may have fought the most complete fight of his career against Garcia. He mixed boxing and attacking behind his jab perfectly to the dismay of Garcia who wasn’t able to find the solution.  By tweaking his style, Porter was able to out-work Garcia in nearly every round and win the fight with very few close calls. And it was obvious that neither Danny Garcia nor his father and trainer, Angel, counted on Porter giving them a different look because he had never shown that capacity before and they didn’t think he was a sophisticated enough thinker to do so. Porter fooled them and at the same time made a difficult fight a little less physically taxing.

The occasions when an authentic attacker like Shawn Porter can alter his style are few and far between. That said, for Porter it’s most likely a one-time thing because if he fights IBF welterweight title holder Errol Spence next, what worked against Garcia will be met by a brick wall against Spence.

For at least one night Shawn Porter did what swarmers rarely have success in doing, and that’s flipping the script by taking their foot off the gas, fighting at a measured pace, and using their opponents aggression against them.

Photo credit: Amanda Westcott / SHOWTIME

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Frank Lotierzo can be contacted at GlovedFist@Gmail.com

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