Alyssa Garcia embraces pressure that comes with having ex-UFC fighter Josh Barnett as trainer

For an up-and-coming fighter, a well-known veteran’s stamp of approval is a double-edged sword. If on the one hand it helps raise their profile, it also means the added weight of early expectations.

Atommweight Alyssa Garcia, the protege of former UFC heavyweight champion Josh Barnett, agrees with that statement. Yes, she says, there is the extra weight that comes with Barnett’s public support. But there are is also the valuable training advice, the experience and the opportunities that a fighter of his level brings.

The trick? Embracing all of it.

“It does put the pressure on me, but I like that,” Garcia told MMAjunkie. “Because my teammates and my coach put so much time, money and effort into me and us that the pressure isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I like it, and I used to not like it. Definitely does open doors for me, which is great, because I can show the world what I can do under a big stage.

“A lot of people say like, ‘She’s under Josh Barnett, but he’s a heavyweight, not a 105-er so he can’t really teach her much or what can he do.’ That’s fine they can think that, but the stuff that I learned from Josh in the amount of time I’ve been with him has upped my game 100 percent. It’s amazing. I feel so comfortable. The things that he says, his fight I.Q. is amazing. I don’t have fear when I’m there.”

Alyssa Garcia

Garcia (3-2), who returns to Combate Americas against Bellator vet Sheila Padilla (2-1) on Friday, credits Barnett with helping her secure the opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to fight Kanna Asakura (7-2) at last December’s Rizin FF 3 event in Japan.

“If I didn’t have Josh as a coach and as one of my mentors, I probably would have never been able to get on that Rizin card,” Garcia said. “It put the pressure on me. I was the underdog, but I liked it, and I was like, ‘What’s the worst that happen?’ They’re expecting me to lose. Best thing I could is surprise the hell out of everybody and come out on top.”

Once the doors were open, it was up to Garcia to perform. And that’s just what she did, pulling the upset with a unanimous decision. The win, which broke a two-fight skid, was big for a number of reasons. For one, Garcia was happy to cross off a fight under PRIDE rules from her bucket list in what turned out to be an “amazing” experience.

But it also meant something bigger: much-needed confirmation that Garcia belonged in the fight game.

“I really wanted to see if I could have a career in this, if I could really do this and keep going forward,” Garcia said. “Josh said it was the biggest stage, the biggest fight of my career so far. And I said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it. If I don’t do it now, I’m never going to do it.’ And it kind of showed me where I am with all the other big names in the atomweight division. I told myself, ‘I need to do this. If I lose, maybe this isn’t for me. If I win, I should probably stay on the same track that I’m on.’

“There were 20,000 people just watching me and Asakura. The thought of that is kind of crazy. Pressure is either going to break pipes or make diamonds. It was one of those things where it was like, ‘I need to know how I’m going to do in a big setting like this.’ All odds were against me. I was the underdog, I hadn’t fought in a year and a half; I was in her house in Japan. It was kind of all against me, and it was like, ‘If I can do this, I can do anything.'”

Although she was dealing with a popped rib for the first four months of her year-and-a-half layoff, it wasn’t the physical aspect that kept her away for so long. After the first loss of her career, a split decision to Julia Jones in 2015, Garcia went on to be choked out by Celine Haga in the first round of their BAMMA appointment.

That setback turned out to be a hard one to digest.

“That kind of stunned me a little bit, because it was my mindset that wasn’t there,” Garcia said. “It wasn’t that necessarily she was better than me, or I was weaker, or I couldn’t defend. My mind wasn’t in it. It’s easier to take a loss knowing someone was better than you. It’s like, ‘You know what, that’s fine. I learned something.’

“Usually going into fights I have butterflies, I get a little nervous. I felt like I was just going into sparring. I didn’t feel like I was about to go into a fight. My mindset wasn’t there, that’s what bothered me. And I was like, ‘I don’t want to go into another fight, my mind might not be there, and I can’t just walk off stage.’ I had to really get my (expletive) together and figure some things out.”

Garcia has since joined Barnett’s CSW training grounds. Now riding back-to-back wins after a split call over Kaiyana Rain at Combate Americas 11 in February, she’s feeling a “big difference” with the team-driven mentality that now follows her training and fights.

Not to mention the assistance of Barnett’s specific coaching techniques.

“(Barnett) doesn’t put the pressure on winning or losing,” Garcia said. “He puts the pressure on me about getting a finish. We know we’re going to win, but we need to get a finish, so don’t go three or five rounds. Get a finish. The mindset that he puts is amazing; the idea of losing is never there.

“It’s either win by knockout, submission or we go all three rounds. We’ve already won, so it’s just how it’s going to win, and how he wants us to win.”

That finish-driven mentality is exactly what Garcia is looking to bring to Friday’s scrap against Padilla.

Alyssa Garcia

“We kind of always stick to the same game plan,” Garcia said. “The only thing that really changes is she’s a little more experienced on the ground than my last opponent. Which doesn’t really make a big difference. You would like the finish to be off of the ground, so that’s what we’re working for – looking for the finish right off the cage.”

After contemplating giving up, Garcia is now going “full throttle” into the MMA career that prompted her to drop out of college a year and a half ago.  And while she’s unable to live exclusively off of fighting, working at a gym during the week and at a bar on the weekends, Garcia expects that to change soon.

“I do pretty well for myself, but fighting alone doesn’t pay the bills yet,” Garcia said. “But soon enough, for sure.”

It’s clear that Rizin made a huge difference in Garcia’s life. So it’s no surprise that the atomweight, who wants to stay as active as possible while her body holds up, hopes she has a new shot on Japanese soil.

“After I win this fight, I’d like to go back to Rizin,” Garcia said. “There’s been rumors of a women’s GP, and they had a commercial that went off in Japan about a month ago. And they had a fantasy lineup on what they would like, and I was on there. I’m hoping they’re trying to build that up, try to hype that up to make it a thing …

“I’d love to go back to Japan and fight in Rizin. It was an awesome experience and I’d like to go back.”

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