Tomorrow night features a WBC welterweight title fight between reigning titleholder Mario Barrios defending his belt against challenger Ryan Garcia. Both fighters appeared for a final press conference yesterday to share some final thoughts on their upcoming battle, with Oscar De La Hoya showing off that brand new sparkly piece from the WBC, which will be awarded to the winner of this main event. Here’s some excerpts from the fighters themselves on the bout.
Garcia on what he’s bringing to this fight and
“There’s not a lot that I haven’t seen in the sport of boxing — a long amateur career, the amount of fights I’ve had, all the sparring I’ve had…For me, I’m just preparing myself and I have as best as I possibly can, and now when I step in that ring I know myself will be 100%. So, we just have to see when he’s in there how he is, but I definitely don’t think it’s something I haven’t seen.
“I think I could do a lot of talking, and say ‘oh, I’m prepared as best I can.’ You can just look at me and see the shape I’m in and how I look and have your own opinion on it. I think that speaks enough.”
Barrios on being the champion but Garcia commanding most of the attention
“None of it has bothered me. I know I’m the champion for a reason. I know everything I’ve been doing in the gym, everything I’ve been doing to prepare for this fight. I’m not a talker when it comes to all this but every time I get in the ring I fight, I leave it all in there, and that’s exactly what I’m looking forward to this Saturday.
“I’m really happy with the way tings went in this camp and I couldn’t really ask for much more. I’m just ready…I think just watching film on Ryan’s past couple performances we can see a lot of flaws in his game plan and it didn’t take somebody knowing (Ryan) personally to have an edge over him.”
Watch the full highlights of the press conference in the video link at the top!
