He bounced and bobbed, twitched and shouted, tossed custom T-shirts to the opposition and, at one point, disappeared from the dais altogether.
But nothing spoke so many decibels about the proceedings at Thursday’s Los Angeles press conference for Ryan Garcia’s upcoming welterweight fight against WBC titleholder Mario Barrios as the moment an observer in the cheap seats hijacked a media question and Garcia entertained the back-and-forth.
After declining to predict a round in which he would stop Barrios, even Garcia – boxing’s king of cringe – seemed to sense the air leaving the room and cut things short with the fan: “I got you, bro – don’t trip.”
Then, with almost perfect unintentional comic timing, he quipped:
“That guy is crazy!”
Here we go again. Boxing fans can set their watches by nothing in this mad, mad, mad sport, but they know that if they wait around long enough, they can always count on the next random display of public weirdness from Garcia. To make matters more interesting, at least in theory, Thursday’s weirdness came with a prescribed theme: the alleged betrayal of Garcia’s former trainer Joe Goossen, now in Barrios’ corner.
Forget that Goossen guided Garcia – by then an established 20-fight veteran in the pros – for all of 14 months over three fights. And forget that Goossen was gracious and played down any notion of a rift when he spoke from the dais. Garcia, spurred on by promoter Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions and even by emcee Chris Mannix, was insistent on the narrative.
“You broke my heart, Joe,” Garcia, 24-2 (20 KOs), said from his seat, somehow making a broken-heart hand gesture appear less sincere than usual. Goossen, who stood at the center of the dais having just praised his former fighter and spoken about the high quality of the fight he expected on February 21 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, is a savvy guy who had been part of the Garcia carny show for long enough to know when he was being used as a prop.
“My incentive is always the same as it is every fight – for my fighter to win. That’s it,” Goossen said when Mannix stirred the pot. “OK, look, I don't have any resentment. Wherever this resentment is coming from, I don't really know. But the bottom line is, I’ve got nothing against any fighter I’ve ever gone against, ever. OK, I’m just for my fighter, that’s all.”
When Garcia got his turn at the lectern, he thanked all the usual suspects: God, Golden Boy and Turki Alalshikh (whose name the fighter admitted he would butcher and so didn’t bother to try). He shouted out the WBC. No, he really shouted out the WBC, all but rallying those in attendance for a chant. He briefly exited stage left to drag a trio of ring card girls out holding individual placards up high that spelled out the acronym of the sanctioning body.
“Whatever,” Garcia said, finally giving up.
He then indicated he had brought gifts, explaining the backpack he wore to the affair. He began pulling T-shirts from the bag, sorting through them and all but delivering punch lines before establishing the setup – excellent theater, this was.
Finally, mercifully, he threw a shirt that read “I AM A TRAITOR” to Goossen, who tossed it back, more uninterested than offended. Garcia tried to locate a shirt for Barrios but petered out, shrugging, and moved on.
In the end, even he couldn’t commit to his own bit.
Meanwhile, Barrios, 29-2-2 (18 KOs), sat stone-faced, at times bemused but totally unbothered, as the absurdity swirled around him. Eventually given his front-and-center moment, he thanked his own people, chuckled and remarked, “This is turning into a circus.”
Garcia, unable to help himself, interjected: “I’m the ringmaster!”
“You’re the ringmaster?” said Barrios, a 30-year-old San Antonian of Hispanic descent, with a chortle. “The payaso.”
Clown.
“Y’all know what I bring every time I step in there,” Barrios said. “You know, they say that he’s focused, that we’re gonna get a Ryan that’s 100 per cent. That makes me happy to hear. So when I whup his ass on the 21st, there ain’t gonna be no excuses.”
In a moment of rare clarity at the event, Garcia – whose father, Henry, has again taken the wheel as his head trainer – addressed his recent performances.
A destruction of Devin Haney in April 2024 (which was later ruled a no-contest after Garcia tested positive for a PED) was followed by a desultory unanimous decision loss to Rolando “Rolly” Romero last May, all in the wake of substance use and mental health issues that seemed to put Garcia’s career at risk.
“In order to be a great quarterback like Tom Brady, you have to forget what happened and worry about the next play,” Garcia, 27, said. “And that’s what I am [doing]. Just the next play. I got to go grab that title. I’m hungry, excited and I’m ready to put on the show. To me, it’s all a show. I want to put on the best show possible. And you guys are going to get a great, great fight. This guy ain't going to lay down. And I actually got to be more careful of him. If I’m sleeping, he’ll beat my ass. So right now, I’m super locked in, and you’re gonna see, obviously, the best version of myself that you’ve ever seen.”
Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, was a contributor to Ringside Seat and the Queensberry Rules, and has written about boxing for Vice, The Guardian, Sun-Times and other publications. A member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, he can be found at LinkedIn and followed on X and Bluesky.
