Interview Dated August 2004

Daniel "No Time For Tomorrow" Garcia

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and the truth of that proverb is driven home when you meet Daniel Garcia. Heavily covered in multi-colored tattoos, at first glance you might be tempted to think he's some kind of a thug or a gangster. What you probably wouldn't guess is that he's a highly articulate young man who is currently pursuing a degree in chemical science at the University of Houston. Now at the age of 29, the junior welterweight Garcia has pounded out a professional record of 4-3-1 with 3 KO's. He is scheduled to fight on the undercard of the Reggie Johnson comeback fight on August 27th at the Paragon Casino in Marksville, Louisiana.


HBS - How'd you come up with this nickname, "No Time For Tomorrow"?

DG - No Hay Tiempo Para Manana. You know getting older every day, and nobody promises tomorrow so I don't have time for tomorrow you know? It's just something I came up with. I like the way it sounds in Spanish and you know being Hispanic and my family's from San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The rest of my family's from Tijuana. It kind of came together.

HBS - Were you born in Mexico?

DG - I was born in Austin, raised in Houston, here, northside, currently live in the Heights.

HBS - You have an extensive set of tattoos there. Any significance to any of them?

DG - No I tell people every time I get into an argument with my girlfriend I go and get a tattoo.

HBS - You guys must fight a lot....(laughing)

DG - That's the pun behind it.

HBS - How'd you first get involved in boxing?

DG - Growing up as a kid it runs in the family. If you're a boy in my family you fight until you're 18 and you can do whatever you want after that but some of us continue to fight. Others decide to quit boxing, working, go into the army or what-not so I just stuck with it. I also got a job and put myself through school.

HBS - So yeah you come across as a fairly well-spoken guy. Tell us about your education.

DG - Right now I'm in my last year at the University of Houston. I'm studying to be a chemical analyst. After I finish this last year hopefully I can do something like that. I'll have a chemical engineering degree so if boxing doesn't ever pan out, and the majority of the time it doesn't. There are a few champions that are able to get picked with the right fights and good promoters and managers and they become champions. But for us who don't have that you know we've got to strive a little more and have something to fall back on at least.

HBS - So you took some time off. What happened?

DG - I had signed a contract to fight Julio Cesar Chavez Junior and the matchmaker was Bill Benton. You know he represents Top Rank. He's one of the matchmakers for Top Rank. The fight was scheduled and it fell through. His dad apparently was making his last fight in Mexico back in 2003 I think it was and his dad wanted him to fight on his undercard in Mexico so they handpicked an opponent down there. Told me the fight was still happening just at a later date. Well when that date came around of course I was under contract with Top Rank and they kept just prolonging the scheduled date so the only way out of a contract like that is if it terminates after three months so when the three month period had terminated they wanted to sign another contract so we did. I guess being that I had a lot of good sparring here with a gentleman by the name of Elizar Contreras. I was sparring him a lot. I was sparring another high profile guy by the name of Rodrigo Cerda. He also has a brother named Jesus Cerda and they're both prospects, actually high prospects. They just kept waiting and waiting and waiting until the second contract ended I called Mark Ratner up at the Las Vegas Athletic Commission and spoke with him about the contract and faxed the contract over to him and he contacted Bill. Of course Bill was supposed to have money that Top Rank sent him for training expenses, reimbursement for the contract not going through and I never received that so I got in a lot of trouble over at Main Boxing Club and they kicked me out and so it was kind of hard to get fights even under Browning. Bob Spagnola works close with Bill Benton and I know a lot of people know that and you piss off Bill you're not going to get any fights and if you want to try to go through the back door which is with Bob Spagnola of course he doesn't want to step on Bill Benton's feet so there were no fights for me. I finally got one with a gentlemen by the name of Bobby Aucoin and ended up going down there. I was a handpicked opponent. I was supposed to lose that fight. I ended up dropping him in the second round and the video says it all, I mean I beat him you know three out of four rounds and they ended up just giving it to him because I was in his backyard. He was managed by my current manager now, Kerry Daigle, so that's kind of how I came in contact with Kerry. Kerry was interested in me as far as after what he saw in the fight and contacted me and we talked for about a year. I was skeptical being that somebody from out of state wanted to pick me up. So I chatted with him for awhile and finally took a chance, thinking I was going to be opponents for his guys and it turned out to be actually really good. We had a good dinner and it's all be uphill from now.

HBS - So it had to be pretty annoying to lose that split decision to Aucoin.

DG - It was very annoying. He knew he lost the fight at the end of the fight and his people at the time also knew it. They also came over to me and congratulated me for a good fight and you could kind of hear it in their voices. But you know what? Whenever you go to somebody's backyard you have to take it away from them. No matter what. Even if you are favored to win and you're fighting a guy in his hometown you'd better come to fight. I mean that's all I have to say. He's a good fighter and he's continued to show that. He's gone on to win several fights, no losses. He's got one draw, blemish on his record and my hat's off to him. He's a good guy. I talk to him often now being that we're in the same stable and so they're all good people you know?

HBS - Then you just fought recently and you dispatched the guy pretty quickly.

DG - Actually Michael McMillan I fought junior welterweight that fight, being that I had been fighting previously in the lightweight division and being that I was off for such a long period of time. I wanted to go ahead and my people, Kerry Diagle and everybody backing me thought that instead of trying to take the weight off at such a fast pace, they wanted me to go fight at a little bit heavier weight and the gentleman that was in the opposite corner was a guy by the name of Michael McMillan. Tough, lanky guy, very strong, no conditioning though. I mean you can typically tell if anybody has conditioning in their first round. If you hit some body shots and they're backing up and their punches get weaker and you see them not throwing as many punches. But he should have been knocked out the first round. I kind of felt like the referees carried him a little bit being as the first fight right before mine was an early knockout. They wanted to give the crowd a little something to watch so they carried him. He got up at the count of nine and the fight doctor actually got up on the apron and spoke to the referee after the count of nine telling him that the fight should have been called. But within two seconds after we were told to box the bell rang. The second round came out and I knew he was still hurt. I could see it in his corner in between the rounds duirng the rest period and he didn't have his legs and I knew that it was just a matter of time being the punches I caught him with.

HBS - So that had to feel good then, a nice confidence booster after a long layoff.

DG - It felt really good. Anytime you get a long layoff like that you want a victory and that's what was given to me by the grace of God and my corner.

HBS - So now you've got another fight coming up August 27th on the undercard of the Reggie Johnson fight.

DG - From what I understand the gentleman's name is Chris Smith. They're not sure, it's a funny story. He might be in jail right now. I'm not sure. He got caught on some sort of, I don't know if it was drugs or robbery but he's a faily decent guy. 6-1. A lot of his knockouts were guys that were 0-7 and 2-14 and stuff like that so we'll see if he comes to the show. If not whoever's there in front of me is going to meet No Hay Tiempo Para Manana, Daniel Garcia.

HBS - And so you feel pretty good right now? You're ready to go ahead and advance in your career and resume regular fights?

DG - Oh yeah. We've got a pretty busy schedule coming up for the rest of the year. I"m priveleged to fight under Reggie Johnson, a former world champion and he's making a comeback and from what I understand my manager and people that are backing me have a busy schedule like I said. I'm supposed to be fighting on the 22nd of September after this fight. I'm not looking forward to that fight, only because I got one on the 27th and I believe also on November 29th I'll be fighting again. I think that November is going to be the last fight for this year just because it's going to be a few days after Thanksgiving. I"ll have me a week old plate in the refrigerator and I want to be able to enjoy Christmas with my family and my daughter.