The creepiest scenario for horror movies is easily anything that involves murderous clowns or evil puppets. If someone ever figures out a way to make a successful “It”/“Child’s Play” crossover movie, it’ll ruin sleep for an entire generation.
But a close third are those iconic, blank-expression, dead-man-walking kinds of masks sported by noted slashers Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. So when Danny Garcia put on the China-doll faceplate from The Purge: Anarchy for his tilt against Rod Salka in August 2014? Maximum creepiness was unlocked.
Anarchy had just come out the month before the fight, the follow-up to 2013’s The Purge—a near-future dystopian bloodbath where all crime is legal for 12 hours a year.
Whether the intimidation factor played into it at all or not, Garcia hammered Salka, flooring him three times in the second round to score a knockout.
His next fight, against Lamont Peterson last April, was maskless, and Garcia came away with the win—although it was a taut majority decision with scores of 115-113 on two cards.
Back to the mask it was. This time, a custom version that incorporated Garcia’s “DSG” logo.
It worked for Garcia’s fight against Paulie Malignaggi in August. Garcia worked his way to a ninth-round stoppage in that fight. One tough fight without the mask, two impressive performances with it. We may have the beginning of a superstition cooking here.
“Oh, I’m Purging for the rest of my career,” he laughed.
Garcia will have another opportunity to test the power of The Purge when he takes on Robert Guerrero in a 147-pound title bout in Los Angeles on January 23 (Fox, 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT).
Writer/director James DeMonaco is already working on The Purge 3, which is scheduled for release this summer. Garcia hasn’t pushed for a cameo yet, but it does have the potential to be the best boxer-in-a-non-boxing movie turn since at least The Hangover.
“I definitely need to start getting some residuals for this,” he said.
For complete coverage of Garcia vs Guerrero, make sure to check out our fight page.
