On the night of Saturday, 20, 2026, Ryan Garcia, at left, defeated Mario Barrios and won his WBC World Welterweight Crown at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“I couldn’t establish my jab!”
Can we talk? This is when you establish how great your trainer really is.
When you can’t land your jab, nor can you stop his jab, what do you do? Not once did I hear Barrios corner say, “When he throws the jab, drop under and come over top,” or “Parry the jab and counter,” or “Catch and slide on top.” These are all legit moves that absolutely kill an overzealous jabber.
So, Barrios basically didn’t know how to use it (the jab)… NOR did he know how to defuse it. (the jab)
“I couldn’t establish my jab!”
Yeah, okay… SO ADAPT! Try something different. Barrios showed no diversity. He was like a pitcher who continually threw everything predictably fast and over the plate — no curveball, fastball, slider, or changeups.
But the “Jab Jobs” in boxing never cease to amaze me. Keep banging that same drum. “The most important punch in boxing”.
It’s predictable. The worst thing you want to be in a fight against someone intelligent anyway is predictable.
In a nutshell, Barrios never got out of neutral against Garcia because he couldn’t land the jab. His spirit was there, but his body stopped fighting. This was a loss, one-hundred percent attributed to his training staff.
He can’t fight without jabbing first. Nor did he know how to use Garcia’s jab against him.
Jabbing is a reflex fighters fight. Barrios doesn’t have Garcia’s reflexes, so you know this wasn’t going to be a successful campaign for him.
And that’s the whole problem with jab-first fighters. If they don’t dominate with the jab, or they can’t touch you with it, they cannot generally find a way to win.
It happened with Ali every time he fought Norton. And he’s the GOAT. Yet every fighter that KO’d Norton didn’t use a jab. All the fighters Norton gave hell to had incredible jabs: Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes, two of boxing’s most elite jabs of all time. (Same thing versus Duane Bobick, who had a great jab!)
It also happened when Garcia couldn’t dominate with his jab against Tank Davis.
In boxing, you have to have your fighter ready for all different scenarios. To believe you’re just going to step into the ring and everything you game planned for is going to happen, isn’t an effective or winning strategy.
If you’re a great teacher, teach your fighters how to win without establishing the jab AND teach your fighters how to shut down your opponent’s jab.
It’s rudimentary. This is bordering on primitive and disgusting.
100%Silk.