When Leonard Garcia lost six of seven and five in a row in the UFC, he knew something needed to change.

His longtime coaches knew, too. And while the solution still may be a work in progress, the first experiment went pretty well. Now Garcia will be hoping Step 2 is as much of a success.

Garcia (16-11) meets Nick Gonzalez (18-11) on Friday at Legacy FC 23, which takes place at Cowboys Dancehall in San Antonio with a main card on AXS TV. It will be the second fight for “Bad Boy” doing a combined training regiment between Jackson-Winkeljohn MMA in Albuquerque, N.M., and the crew at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento.

In July, in his first fight outside the UFC or WEC in more than seven years, Garcia snapped his five-fight skid with a head-kick knockout of Rey Trujillo at Legacy FC 21.

Against Gonzalez, he’ll meet a fighter who has had his ups and downs with no winning streak since 2007. But it’s also an opponent who has been in the cage with the likes of Josh Thomson and Yves Edwards, and who has fought for Bellator, Strikeforce and EliteXC. Like Garcia, he’s a Texan.

“I saw one of his fights in San Antonio and I was rooting for the guy,” Garcia on Tuesday told MMAjunkie.com Radio. “He seems to be a cool dude – everybody that knows him seems to say he’s a pretty good guy. So no animosity at all – except he signed a contract to fight me, and that’s all the animosity I need.”

Garcia said he started doing work with Team Alpha Male to shore up his wrestling game. The crew started by former WEC featherweight champ Urijah Faber is widely considered the best team for the lighter weight classes in the world, and with UFC standouts like Faber and Chad Mendes, wrestling is a key component of training.

The team also earlier this year brought on Duane Ludwig as its head coach – and the team has responded by going 17-0 in UFC fights under his tutelage.

Garcia said there have been no issues with splitting time between the two teams, and he believes he brings a little something to the table for the Alpha Male members, too.

“I’m lucky enough to be able to train at both places with no repercussions, and that’s a rare thing,” Garcai said. “I’ve been able to come (to Alpha Male) and make a smooth transition. I think what I bring to them is I’m the same weight class as all of them, but I’m just a little bit taller. I bring a different type of kickboxing game and different type of jiu-jitsu. So they like it as much as I do. I’m as much a threat to them in training as they are to me as far as things we can do for each other.”

He said his longtime head coach, Greg Jackson, was in favor of the move, if for no other reason than to help Garcia get a change of pace.

Prior to his win over Trujillo, Garcia hadn’t had a win by anything other than split decision since a November 2008 TKO of Jens Pulver in the WEC. After that, his record was 3-8-1 with split-decision wins over Jameel Massouh, Chan Sung Jung and Nam Phan – and in the Jung and Phan fights, most major media members scored the bouts against him.

So to see the change of scenery pay off right away was a notch in everyone’s favor.

“Greg was really open to letting me come out here and he figured with Duane out here, just having so many guys that are good at what I was bad at, just to see every day, was probably the best thing for me,” Garcia said.

But while Garcia may spend time with a new team these days, right now he believes he’ll only have one place that will be his true home.

“Jackson’s is my home,” he said. “I couldn’t leave Jackson’s no matter what. They’re my home team.”

For the latest on Legacy FC 23, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of the site.

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