How much do Daniel Óscar "Swift" García's career asterisks affect his legacy?

If you weren't along for the ride, here's a recap of how things grew toxic between DSG and quite a large subsection of the fan base:

• Multiple gift decisions (from an estimable number's standpoint), from his early rise until very deep into his time on top.
  
  The ones in question include:
  
  SD10 Ashley Theophane, 2/26/2010
  SD12 Kendall Holt, 10/15/2011
  UD12 Lucas Martín Matthysse, 9/14/2013
  MD12 Mauricio Herrera, 3/15/2014
  MD12 Lamont Peterson, 4/11/2015
  MD12 José Benavidez Jr., 7/30/2022
  
  Aside from LMM, his remaining unanimous decision victories are not generally disputed. Zab Judah was a case of close but clear, with the majority of fans and pundits having it about 115-112 in Danny's favor. Robert Guerrero was likewise a fairly straightforward 8-4 tilt - competitive but unproblematic in the official tallies.
  
  As for the non-UD, there is one specific entry from each category that stands out as most egregious. Some may feel that Holt, Peterson, or Benavidez earned the nod - but it's the SD over Theophane and MD over Herrera that have lodged themselves distastefully in the craws of all observers for more than a decade.
  
  Even if you score all six contests for him, the fact that he got the benefit of the doubt on half a dozen occasions where many knowledgeable boxing minds see a great deal of margin for doubt tells you he was absolutely blessed with the same almost providentially charmed luck as, say, Canelo. Difference being, even if you dislike Canelo you have to admit that he was world class already as a teenager and has been a top p4p talent in the world since fully maturing - and, while he does have victories over old/shot fighters, he is put to shame by García in that respect.
  
  
• The fight with Lucas Matthysse, and the lack of a rematch. Yeah it's just a single match, but this is where a lot of people (myself included) went from ambivalence to antipathy - or preexisting dislike to full-blown hostility. It deserves its own section.
  
  First, the build-up. García's team stalled contract negotiations as long as they could. It took practically a damn Act of Congress to get him in the ring with LMM (really, being threatened with a stripping of his title, as the hard-hitting Argentine was his mandatory).
  
  Lots of disrespect thrown Matthysse's way by Danny and his dad.
  
  Lobbied for double the purse Matthysse got. Yes, technically he was the champ but Matthysse as the challenger was also the WBC's interim world champ. It was a unification between the interim and "real" champions - and the latter should have had a larger slice of the pie, but double? (1.5 mil to 3/4 mil, per Fat Dan...some rumors even say that behind the scenes the purses were fattened up, but not proportionately - with DSG actually getting triple at 3 mil to Matthysse's million)
  
  I don't recall any talk of García trying for any of the usual cheeky A-side advantage-gaining stipulations like catchweights or rehydration clauses or larger-sized gloves, but it wouldn't shock me if there was a deal of that that just wasn't made public.
  
  Now, the fight itself. As soon as he tasted Matthysse's power, García began low-blowing early & often. Another ref would have docked points by the halfway mark...and issues warnings for the clinching, which was also bad but secondary to the groin shots.
  
  Then, the headbutt. This, and some lacing from an incidental backhand brushing by García's glove, would combine to swell the Argentinian's eyes almost completely shut (but the ref didn't rule any of that damage to have been from fouls, IIRC). This would spell doom for not just Matthysse's chances in the late stretches on this night, but for the rest of his career.
  
  Even with Matthysse half-blind for the second half of their struggle, it was a close scrape. Without the 11th round knockdown, it would have been a draw on two judges' cards. Many fans still had it for Matthysse, although a majority online and ringside at press row did have it close but clear for García.
  
  In light of all that, you would think a clearer-cut necessitation of running it back to settle business had never been seen in the sport, no? Well, when the dust cleared, he wasted no time stating that he would never grant a rematch as that was Matthysse's one and only chance at him.
  
  
• Cherry-picking opposition and general pompous A-side diva shenanigans.
  
  Most shamefully damning of all is his non-title affair with Rod Salka in 2014 while the reigning WBA, Ring Magazine, and WBC light welterweight champ. He changed it to a 142lb catchweight after none of the above organizations agreed to sanction their belts, given that feather-fisted no-mark Salka was a lightweight and unranked even at 135lb (likely not in any of their respective top 40s ...excepting maybe the WBC, as he was coming off a victory over Alexei Collado for their FECARBOX title). He, to nobody's surprise, stopped Salka in short order in a complete waste of a Showtime main event - elevated inexplicably over both Danny Jacobs vs. Jarrod Fletcher and Lamont Peterson vs. Edgar Santana. I think it might've been billed as a "triple-header", but still. Ick.
  
  That was far from his only time imposing dumb stipulations to gain an advantage. In his most recent ring appearance he tried draining an old Erislandy Lara to a 157lb catchweight on the Canelo vs. Berlanga undercard. He was whitewashed and made to quit in 9 rounds. Size wasn't a factor. Lara just boxed his face off, easily, in what wasn't even an especially strong performance by Lara's standards. So much for catching a 2nd wind in his career campaigning at 160lbs...
  
  Whooping on the walking corpse of living legend Érik Morales - mind you not once, but twice over! (and the second time knowing full well that Morales had had extreme difficulty making the weight before) - did him no good in the court of public opinion. That was probably where most people had already taken a sharp left turn on Mr. García, prior to Matthysse. Much more than those two in his naughty dossier, although of lesser degree:
  
  Zab Judah - already shot by 2013, recently knocked out by Khan, and in generally awful form, down in multiple bouts even when victorious.
  
  Brandon Ríos - limited fighter, had already milked all the longevity that can be wrung from his style; shot to hell by 2018.
  
  Nate Campbell - thoroughly shot by 2011, coming off two losses officially (should have been three, as he talked his way into a NC versus Bradley).
  
  Paul Malignaggi - shot already by 2013, coming off a mauling by Porter.
  
  Mike Arnaoutis - loved him, but no more than an FNF level fighter and was well & truly shot by 2010, coming in 1-4 in his last five.
  
  Ivan Redkach - like Ríos, a facefirst fighter whose style was never destined to age gracefully, already in his mid-thirties and shot by 2020 despite being on a short win streak.
  
  So, since his prospects days, does Danny have any opponents that he beat non-controversially who were in their primes? Yes, a few. Emphasis on few:
  
  Amir Khan, ~26 years old. Sam Vargas, ~27 years old. Adrian Granados, ~30 years old. I'll even generously throw in, I guess, Guerrero - though 33 and past prime, he wasn't completely shot to bits. So fine, full-ish credit to DSG for that one.
  
  ...and that's that, three or four, that you can't really take anything away from him over. The rest of his time in the ring as professional since very early on? All losses, farces, and (arguable) robberies.
  
  Quite a bit to not love, about the guy. Then throw in the horrendous eyebrow grooming, and his mouthpiece / father / coach, "Crazy" Ángel García, whom he was content to let do the legwork of selling his events using offense over-the-top trash-talking - oof. Even if the fighter himself were a saint, you'd be inclined to want him to lose just on principle for that pair of outside-the-ring sins.

 

So you might wonder "why did this kid get such special treatment?"...

All the favorable decisions, path of least resistance red-carpeted for him, et al. Well, you have to put things in contemporary context. It's actually easy to see why boxing bigwigs would've wanted to court favor with a young undefeated García. He was a rather good amateur, winning 89% of his 120 bouts and becoming U.S. national champion. No forays into the Olympics or AIBA worlds, but still. Not too shabby, and he was a relatively handsome, hazel-eyed boxer-puncher - all things that marketability make. But none of that holds a candle to his boricua background.

See, when he came up there was a bit of a power vacuum when it came to "next big Puerto Rican boxing draw post-Trinidad". Yes, the clear p4p best from the island was Miguel Cotto - but he wasn't exactly loved the way Tito had been. Some of you will remember when he faced Carlos "El Indio" Quintana, the overwhelming fan sentiment was on the side of the latter. You'd have perhaps thought, with it being a battle of unbeaten countrymen, support would be torn 50-50. Not so. Quintana was very much the babyface and Cotto the heel. You see, Miguel's family owned a chain of gas stations - at which Carlos had pumped as wage-slave as he worked on honing craft in the gym without any major backing (he was promoted by Don King and trained by Félix Trinidad Sr. not long after debuting, but when Tito retired they both promptly dropped him like a hot relleno de papa. He also was a friendly & humble salt-of-the-earth type, whereas Junito could be a bit...surly. Aloof, almost.

Cotto was respected, but didn't inspire the same fanatically ardent passion (and with it, revenue-generating potential) as Trinidad. Everybody was waiting with baited breath for the next Puerto Rican or even American of P.R. descent to galvanize that demographic. Danny, extremely popular in his native Philly (the place with the most Puerto Ricans on earth outside the island itself and NYC...but with double that city's percentage-of-population being boricua) - probably seemed a good candidate as he punched his way up the ranks. What we have to wonder is whether he would've climbed as high without some nudging from Golden Boy Promotions every step of the way.

Four years ago today, he lost decisively to Errol Spence, Jr. in what amounted to a rout, running him off from the 147lb division forever. In nearly five years since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, he is just 1-2, culminating in that absolute humiliation at the Cuban American Dream's hands. The ink may be ready to dry. Even should he bang on, at 36, at 154 (let alone 160), nobody is holding their breath for Swift to be a championship threat anymore. His body of work is as written. What then do we honestly make of him - fans, haters, and in-betweens alike, now that some years have passed since some of the topics that were once hot-button? How much does his penchant for shot or otherwise disadvantaged opponents count against his standing? How many losses ought he have? Is swerving the Matthysse rematch, in hindsight, at all forgivable?

 

And yes, I am clearly and unabashedly a salty Matthysse fanboy ...but even so, trying my best to be impartial and give him a fair accounting. I just don't think he's going to go down in history as that great. Getting into IBHOF is possible, but nobody's going to ever call him an ATG. And he wasn't ever close to being one. Overachieved if anything, with some help.

 

That's a fair summary.

 

@CST80 used to call him Legohead.

 

To hear some of his backers on message boards tell it back in the day, he was right up there behind Mayweather and Pacquiao.

Matthysse had a hype train of his own to be sure, of which I was a vocal part, but none of us put him in as high a pedestal as some people (first for-instance that springs to mind is MVC, but a decent amount of non-trolls as well)

 

If you're a through and through hater to your bones: were you a Morales or Matthysse guy? (or other, or both...damn, being both might make García somebody's least favorite fighter of the millennium so far )

 

Yeah, basic Bam-Bam wasn't winning that at any point (given that his one real calling card is knockout power and one thing you CAN'T knock Danny about is his chin) - let alone that war-tattered version.