Ryan Garcia earns career-defining title win with landslide decision against Mario Barrios

Las Vegas — Ryan Garcia stamped the finest night of his turbulent career with a near-shutout unanimous decision over Mario Barrios on Saturday, seizing the WBC welterweight title before a roaring crowd at T-Mobile Arena and claiming full world-champion status for the first time.

The 27-year-old Californian announced his intentions immediately, flooring Barrios with a crisp right cross in the opening round. Although the knockdown would remain the fight’s lone official knockdown, Garcia never relinquished control, circling, countering and repeatedly piercing the southpaw champion’s guard with the same right hand that had shocked him early.

Judges saw the contest identically in spirit if not in exact totals, turning in cards of 119-108, 120-107 and 118-109, all for Garcia. The lopsided tallies reflected a bout that grew increasingly one-sided as Barrios, 30, searched for answers that never materialized. After back-to-back draws entering the night—including a controversial stalemate with 46-year-old legend Manny Pacquiao last summer—the Texas native has now gone three fights without a victory.

Garcia’s dominance came despite a potential handicap. Mid-fight his father and head trainer told DAZN that his son’s right hand might be injured, yet Garcia kept the weapon in play, mixing in combination punching to keep Barrios hesitant and head-snapping. By the championship rounds Garcia was content to box safely, confident the scoreboards were secure.

The triumph caps a redemption arc that few fighters ever navigate. In 2023 Garcia was stopped by Gervonta Davis; in 2024 his career-best win over Devin Haney was expunged after a failed drug test; and in early 2025, fresh off a one-year suspension, he was dropped and outpointed by underdog Rolando Romero. Against Barrios he looked reborn, fast, disciplined and, for the first time in years, unburdened.

“It feels great, man, but it feels better to be a child of God, to be honest,” Garcia told DAZN’s Bernardo Osuna in the ring. “I dedicate this to my dad, though. I wanted to show my full arsenal. I believe it was a kind of masterclass, but I should’ve got the finish. I hurt my right hand, [and] Mario’s a tough warrior, a fellow Mexican-American. I hurt him multiple times, but like I said, he’s a tough son of a b—.”

Attention now pivots to what looms for the newly crowned titlist. British puncher Conor Benn had been installed as the WBC’s mandatory challenger, yet Friday’s bombshell that Benn is leaving Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom stable to join Dana White’s nascent Zuffa Boxing promotion has muddied those waters. White has signaled an intention to operate outside traditional sanctioning-body politics, leaving a Benn-Garcia showdown uncertain.

Garcia already has a preferred dance partner. Wearing the gold strap, he called out fellow American Shakur Stevenson, who captured the WBO welterweight belt in January by outclassing Teofimo Lopez in New York.

“You know who I want,” Garcia said, grinning toward the camera. “He’s right there: Shakur Stevenson. Let’s go, let’s run that s—. I’m not scared of anything.”

Whether the boxing power brokers can deliver Garcia-Stevenson remains to be seen. For one night, though, the sport’s most enigmatic star shed the chaos that has long trailed him, standing center ring as a legitimate, line-bearing champion. The road to this moment detoured through suspensions, defeats and self-inflicted setbacks, but on a neon-lit Strip evening Ryan Garcia finally authored the chapter he has promised since teenage prodigy days: the one that reads champion, undisputed and undeniable.