Danny Garcia hopes to follow Tevin Farmer’s lead, bring another boxing title to Philly

For a while after losing the WBC and WBA welterweight titles to Keith Thurman last year, Danny Garcia felt he'd let down not only himself but also the city of Philadelphia.

But then the Eagles won the Super Bowl in February, and in his own sport, Philly-born super featherweight Tevin Farmer captured the IBF world title earlier this month. Now, Garcia feels ready to get back on that list of champions and enjoy the new company.

"I'm not going to lie, sometimes it felt like I let my city down, because I was the only one who was a world champion," Garcia said. "I'm happy for Tevin Farmer, I'm happy for everybody from Philly who's doing their thing. I want more fighters from Philly to win world titles, and I think there's going to be a few more the way it's looking like."

Garcia will have his opportunity to reclaim the now-vacant WBC title next month when he squares off against Shawn Porter at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

In the meantime, the 30-year-old boxer looked relaxed Wednesday afternoon at his Harrowgate gym, discussing  the state of the sport in his home city before taking the ring for a training session.

"It's a great thing to see all these guys from Philly really making noise and really looking good, because it's been a while since Philly fighters really looked good on a certain level," he said.

Garcia lauded Farmer's response to a controversial loss to Kenichi Ogawa in December (later overturned when Ogawa tested positive for steroids). Farmer traveled to Billy Dib's home country of Australia and earned a unanimous decision over Dib to grab the title after all. "He did what a lot of great fighters can never do — go from being somebody who nobody thought could do it, and he turned it around," Garcia said.

Garcia also mentioned super welterweights Jesse Hart, coming off an impressive stoppage of Mike Gavronski just two weeks ago, and Julian Williams as two Philadelphians he thinks could challenge for a world title within the coming year.

Of course, he's hoping to beat Hart and Williams to it, and he'll have his chance to do so on Sept. 8.

It will be Garcia's seventh fight in Brooklyn, where he's gained a substantial following, and he said he expects to have the backing of two cities on his side that Saturday night. But if he does regain his old belt, there's no question in his mind which of the cities that title will belong to.

"I always support Philly," he said. "Once I saw Tevin win, that made me happy, because now we have a world champion [again]. Now I've just got to follow up and we'll have two world champions."