Anthony Joshua’s one-time coach, Robert Garcia, has responded to the idea that he didn’t teach the fighter anything during their training camp.
After his first defeat to Oleksandr Usyk, Joshua left longtime trainer Rob McCracken to link up with Garcia, who corners two-weight world champion, Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez.
Garcia was tasked with assisting ‘AJ’ in avenging the defeat, but Usyk again took control of the fight and won via split decision, even despite, as Garcia points out, an improved performance from his man.
Joshua would split with Garcia after the fight and go on to link up with Derrick James. In the time since, he has said he wasn’t learning when they worked together.
Speaking to Boxing News, Garcia said the performance in the Usyk rematch proved that wasn’t the case.
“Every fighter, every person has an opinion. I remember after the fight with Usyk I heard nothing but good things from boxing people.
Everyone calling me like ‘you know what, he looked better than the first time, he was a little more aggressive, he landed some good body shots.’ So I know that I did my job. I know that he did look better than the first time.”
Garcia went on to say that there were cracks in the relationship from the start, as he wasn’t satisfied with the set up of Joshua’s training camp and almost left before he had started.
“Fighters come from saying one thing to another. If we really had that situation, then the problem is he doesn’t have a communication with his management team, because when I first got to camp, I wasn’t very happy with what I seen going on in his training camp.
I told his team ‘fly me home, I don’t want to be part of this’ and they convinced me to stay. So, if that was the case, I think Anthony should have said ‘let him go, cause I don’t wanna work with him.'”
“I knew it’s not gonna work out because the way camp was going with other people that were involved, I don’t need to say any names.”
Joshua has one win under James – a relationship Garcia wishes him the best for – and is next out against Dillian Whyte on August 12.