Barrios will face Ryan Garcia in the main event of “The Ring: High Stakes” at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on DAZN PPV. Barrios hired Goossen to be his head trainer after fighting to draws in his first two title defenses, though 2022 Ring Magazine Trainer of the Year Bob Santos is still part of the team.

After training Barrios (29-2-2, 18 KOs) for over two months, Goossen has been more than pleased with the progress the champion has made.

“I think both of us poured our heart and soul into this camp,” Goossen told The Ring. “I know Mario did. We started on Dec. 1, so we trained all December through Christmas [and] New Year's. We trained all of January, and by the end of the day, it'll be one week short of three months that we've been involved in this camp. That's a long haul.

“Mario gave me everything I asked for without complaint, which makes me work harder. I work hard as it is, but if you give me your heart and soul and your attention and confidence in me and what I'm doing with you, I work even harder. We both clicked right off the bat.”

The rigors of a Goossen-led training camp included 35 rounds of various drills each day for a month before the San Antonio native began sparring. Among the focal points was improving Barrios’ defense, which Goossen believes can help him be more aggressive offensively.

“I worked the floor with him on a lot of technique, tightening the screws on defense, sharpening the offense, adding more combinations, throwing more punches and improving that defense,” Goossen said. “When you have confidence in your defense, you're more than likely to have a more explosive offense. I think we attained all that, and we reached our goals there, and the sparring proved that out.”

Barrios, 30, won the interim WBC welterweight title with a unanimous decision win over former world champion Yordenis Ugas in 2023. He successfully defended the belt once with a unanimous decision over Fabian Maidana in May of 2024 and was later elevated to full champion.

In his two fights since becoming the full champion, he fought to a split draw against Abel Ramos and a majority decision versus eight-division champion and 2025 International Boxing Hall of Famer Manny Pacquiao, on July 19.

Against Pacquiao, Barrios had to rally late to earn the draw, though, many believe the then-46-year-old Filipino star did enough to win. Having fought to back-to-back draws, Goossen has emphasized the importance of Barrios being more assertive against Garcia.

“He needs to do more, and that's what I think was instilled in this camp,” Goossen said. “He's going to do more, but when you do more, you open yourself up more to all sorts of things. That's why you have to defensively get your house in order to do more, because then you have the confidence to let your hands go more, to engage more and then when you have the conditioning of the rounds that we do, then you don't hold back.”