By Keith Idec

NEW YORK – When asked if his father was upset about the split decision that resulted in his first professional defeat Saturday night, Danny Garcia couldn’t help but laugh as he answered.

“My dad’s always upset,” Danny Garcia said of Angel Garcia, his father and trainer. “He thought I won the fight. He thought I won the fight. He was a little upset, but I told him, ‘When you’re a true champion, you’ve gotta take your defeats like your wins.’ ”

Danny Garcia said he would “love to get a rematch against Keith Thurman.” Once his father arrived at their post-fight press conference at Barclays Center, however, he made it clear he doesn’t think his son should fight Thurman again.

A “disgusted” Angel Garcia also doesn’t think Thurman deserved his split-decision win because he spent the second half of their fight “running” away from Danny Garcia. One judge, Kevin Morgan, agreed with Angel Garcia’s perspective on their 12-round fight and scored it 115-113 for Philadelphia’s Garcia (33-1, 19 KOs).

The two other judges – John McKaie (116-112) and Joe Pasquale (115-113) – scored their nationally televised 12-rounder for Thurman (28-0, 22 KOs, 1 NC), of Clearwater, Florida.

“You can’t win a fight running, bro,” Angel Garcia said. “He hit Danny with a good shot in the first [round]. It was a good shot. Danny sucked it up, came back [in] the second, was there in front of him. Then he ran all the way from the sixth, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. How do you win the fight? You’ve gotta be kidding me, brother. This is a sport where you’ve gotta do contact with the fighter, with the person in front of you. You just can’t run. It’s like when [Erislandy] Lara and Canelo [Alvarez], they fought. It’s the same thing, and they gave it to Canelo for being the aggressor. You know what I’m saying?

“I’m not being a sore loser or nothing like that. But if he would’ve beat [Danny], he would’ve had won, then I’ll say, ‘I take my hat off,’ and say, ‘Good job, champ.’ But you can’t beat a world champion like that, bro. You just cannot. And I’m not being a sore loser. I’m just disgusted with boxing right now. I want really Danny to retire today. I really want him to retire. Rematch? No, because we don’t believe it. The only one we gave a rematch was [Erik] Morales. I don’t think we should get a rematch with him. We should start all over – if Danny wants to do it. But the advice I would give him as a dad, we ain’t no steppingstone to nobody. We ain’t no steppingstone.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.