World-renowned boxing trainer Robert Garcia has revealed his concerns ahead of Ryan Garcia’s upcoming world title challenge against Mario Barrios.
Ryan Garcia has become one of boxing’s biggest names over the last few years, but the Californian is still yet to win a world title and came up short in his first challenge for world honours last May, when he was outpointed by Rolando Romero.
This week, it was revealed that ‘King Ry’ will bid for the welterweight throne again when he faces WBC world champion Mario Barrios at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, to possibly tee up a title unification and grudge match rematch against Devin Haney for later in the year.
However, following the announcement, Robert Garcia told Ring Magazine of his concerns regarding the 27-year-old’s trainer situation, after it was revealed that Ryan Garcia was training under his father for the Barrios fight.
“It’s a good match-up for Ryan. I think that Ryan has the skills, the power and the speed to go and become champion but there’s a few things that I see that might not be in his favour.
“The fact that Ryan has already gone through three top trainers, that would’ve done a great job, [is concerning]: Eddy Reynoso, Joe Goossen and Derrick James.
“He is not training with neither of them, he is training with his dad, I’m not saying that [his dad is not a good trainer], he brought him through the amateurs but before he came back to him, he went through three different trainers.
“What do you mean that all three are not good enough [to train you]? All three are some of the best trainers in the world. That’s why he is back with his dad, because he [Ryan] is the boss.”
Barrios-Garcia takes place on Saturday, February 21, with further details regarding the undercard expected to be confirmed imminently.
