Ryan Garcia announced today that he’ll now be training with Derrick James in the same gym with Errol Spence Jr, Anthony Joshua, and Jermell Charlo.
Ryan’s hiring of Derrick James could be a pairing with an early expiration point. If Ryan gets knocked out again, Derrick could be the fall guy while Kingry walks away, looking for the next magical coach that will give him the talent that just isn’t there and likely never will be.
This is a new ship for the 24-year-old Ryan (23-1, 19 KOs) to jump to after terminating Joe Goosen after losing to Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis last April. Before Goosen, Ryan was trained by Eddy Reynoso, and he, too, was let go.
What was troubling was the comment that Goosen made about Ryan the week of the fight. Goosen said that with Ryan, “It’s a collaboration” rather than a traditional trainer-pupil situation.
In other words, Ryan is a know-it-all that isn’t receptive to being trained and wants to do things at his own pace. Some would argue that Ryan Garcia’s attitude closely mimics that of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
On social media, Ryan has received a lot of praise from boxing fans, who feel that he made the right move in selecting Derrick James as his new coach because he’s NOT a ‘Yes man’ and won’t be dictated to by the popular star with his 10 million Instagram followers.
If this pairing leads to Ryan capturing a world title at 140, then you can say the teaming up with Derrick James was a success, but other than that, this could be more of the same musical chairs or ship jumping that Ryan has been doing for the last four years.
The things that Gervonta Davis exposed in Ryan’s game are likely beyond change by Derrick. Ryan was dropped hard in the second round with the first hard shot Tank hit him with. If Tank had gone for the kill instead of letting Ryan survive, he would have likely finished him in round two.
What Ryan should do is return to facing lesser opposition and make easy money for as long as possible until he can persuade Gervonta Davis to give him a rematch or maybe face Devin Haney or Teofimo Lopez if either of those two establishes themselves as stars at 140.
