Danny Garcia to face middleweight champion Erislandy Lara in September

Danny Garcia will have a chance to become the first Philadelphia boxer to win a world title in three weight classes when he returns to the ring for the first time in more than two years.

Garcia (37-3, 21 knockouts) will meet WBA world middleweight champion Erislandy Lara on Sept. 14 in Las Vegas. The fight was expected to happen last year but was delayed after Showtime stopped broadcasting boxing. The title fight will be aired by Prime Video as the featured bout on the undercard of Canelo Alvarez’ssuper middleweight defense against Edgar Berlanga at the T-Mobile Arena.

“My legacy is everything,” Garcia said. “That’s the only reason I want to fight. The money is good. People need money to eat. But money never drove me to fight. I always fought because I thought I was the best. That’s why if you look at my resume, you’ll see the people I fought, it’s not because of the money. It’s because I thought I could beat them. I knew I could beat them. That’s why I fought everybody because I didn’t think anyone could beat me. That was always the mindset. The money is great. The money is a reward. But if you do what you love and you’re passionate about it, the money is going to be there. The money is going to come.”

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Garcia, 36, won his first world title in 2012 as a light welterweight. He moved up four years later to welterweight and became a champion at 147 pounds. This will be his second fight at middleweight. The 41-year-old Lara has won three straight by knockout but has not been matched lately against the stiffest opposition.

This will just be Garcia’s third fight in four years as he took a 19-month layoff after losing to Errol Spence in December of 2020 to confront his mental health. Garcia dealt with anxiety and depression and considered retirement. He re-ignited his love for boxing in the summer of 2022 and scored a decision win over Jose Benavidez in Brooklyn. Emotional in the ring afterwards, Garcia said he hoped he could inspire others.

He continued to train the last two years at his gym in Juniata Park as he stopped-and-started three training camps as the Lara fight kept getting postponed. A third world title, Garcia said, is his dream. He’ll finally get a chance to fight for it.

“That would be it. That would be the history books,” Garcia said. “It’s right there in front of me. I just have to go out there and get it.”

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