{"id":436993,"date":"2026-01-25T18:20:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T18:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/436993\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T18:20:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T18:20:20","slug":"barry-mcguigan-delivers-verdict-on-mario-barrios-vs-ryan-garcia-thats-his-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/436993\/","title":{"rendered":"Barry McGuigan delivers verdict on Mario Barrios vs Ryan Garcia: “That’s his issue”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barry McGuigan has highlighted a major problem that Ryan Garcia<\/a> must address ahead of his clash with WBC world champion Mario Barrios<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pair will square off at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on February 21, with Barrios making a third defence of his green and gold welterweight strap.<\/p>\n

Having previously drawn with Abel Ramos and a 46-year-old Manny Pacquiao, it must be said that the 30-year-old has hardly established himself as the top dog at 147lbs.<\/p>\n

But even so, the sheer work rate of Barrios could represent a key factor against Garcia, whose sporadic activity and lack of discipline in recent years has seemingly become a point of concern.<\/p>\n

The cracks first started to show when Garcia, following a truly bizarre build-up to his showdown with Devin Haney, came in over 3lbs above the super-lightweight limit in April 2024.<\/p>\n

After that, \u2018King Ry\u2019 floored his man three times and claimed a majority decision victory, which was later overturned to a no-contest due to him testing positive for ostarine, a performance-enhancing substance.<\/p>\n

Then, following his year-long ban, Garcia returned against Rolando Romero<\/a> last May and suffered a unanimous decision defeat after getting dropped in the second round.<\/p>\n

According to Hall of Famer McGuigan, the 27-year-old has lacked professionalism since his seventh round stoppage defeat to Gervonta Davis in 2023.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Irish boxing legend has highlighted in his column for The Mirror<\/a> that, against Barrios, Garcia must rely on more than just his talent.<\/p>\n

\u201cGarcia\u2019s talent is not in question; his professionalism has been the issue. He impressed me so much when he fought Luke Campbell five years ago. His hand speed and left hook were exceptional.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack then, his future seemed assured. [But] he is the perfect example that natural ability is never enough. After the defeat to Gervonta Davis in early 2023, everything unravelled.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe failed to make weight against Devin Haney, was subsequently banned for testing positive for a prohibited substance then lost comprehensively to Romero.<\/p>\n

\u201cA dedicated Garcia can still be great for the sport. But he hasn\u2019t been that since the Davis defeat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garcia produced arguably a career-best performance when he survived an early knockdown to stop Campbell, an Olympic gold medallist, in the seventh round of their lightweight encounter in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barry McGuigan has highlighted a major problem that Ryan Garcia must address ahead of his clash with WBC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":436994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-436993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}