{"id":432939,"date":"2026-02-18T21:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432939\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T21:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T21:17:07","slug":"jeff-mayweather-picks-a-winner-in-barrios-vs-ryan-garcia-he-looked-below-average","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432939\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Mayweather picks a winner in Barrios vs Ryan Garcia: &#8220;He looked below average&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jeff Mayweather has offered his thoughts on <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/mario-barrios\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mario Barrios<\/a> vs <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/ryan-garcia\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ryan Garcia<\/a>, while caveating his prediction by suggesting that both men can win by knockout.<\/p>\n<p>The pair will collide for Barrios\u2019 WBC world welterweight title this Saturday, headlining a card at Las Vegas\u2019 T-Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being the defending champion, \u2018El Azteca\u2019 is yet to establish his reign with a victory, having tied his last two outings against Abel Ramos and Manny Pacquiao.<\/p>\n<p>Many even felt that Pacquiao, despite being 16 years his opponent\u2019s senior, had done enough to edge their closely-fought contest last July.<\/p>\n<p>As for Garcia, the 27-year-old comes off a <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/rolando-romero-drops-and-shocks-ryan-garcia-in-new-york\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">unanimous decision defeat to Rolando Romero<\/a>, who also scored a second-round knockdown, in May, which followed his controversial outing with Devin Haney in April 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Back then, \u2018King Ry\u2019 claimed a majority decision victory which, due to the American testing positive for banned substance ostarine, was later overturned to a no-contest.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, Garcia was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/cd1175e56x7o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">handed a year-long ban by the New York State Athletic Commission<\/a> and, based on his performance against Romero, has not looked the same fighter ever since.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the Barrios fight on his <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/lQnVc4iqvgY?si=kvOCTuOoqQE-mix6\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube channel<\/a>, Jeff Mayweather insisted that there are now question marks over Garcia\u2019s ability as a fighter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRyan had one, masterful, great performance \u2013 against Devin Haney. And the sad part about that is that, at the end of the day, he was on something. And he got caught for it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, basically, is Ryan really as good as he seemed to be [against Haney]? He seems like he\u2019s a great fighter but, ever since that fight against Devin, [he\u2019s looked] ordinary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think either guy [Garcia and Barrios] can win by knockout, because both guys can punch. [But] with [Garcia] being caught [failing a drugs test], and then with him fighting Rolly [Romero] and looking way less than average\u2026 I have to go [with] Barrios.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite his limitations, Barrios is known for always bringing a high-intensity approach to the ring, while Garcia seemed to lack such urgency in his last fight against Romero.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeff Mayweather has offered his thoughts on Mario Barrios vs Ryan Garcia, while caveating his prediction by suggesting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-432939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}