Anthony Joshua has opened up on his decision to bring in Robert Garcia as his new head coach.
The former two-time world champion goes for global glory for a third time next month in what will be his first fight since parting ways with Robert McCracken.
Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) left his long-time mentor in the aftermath of his defeat to Oleksandr Usyk last September at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.
The 2012 Olympic gold medallist was on the wrong end of a unanimous decision against the Ukrainian and lost the IBF, WBO, WBA Super and IBO titles at heavyweight to the man who cleaned up the cruiserweight division.
But ahead of their rematch on August 20 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the 32-year-old has had his say on the new arrival to Team AJ.
Joshua, who is already in Saudi preparing for the fight with his fellow former Olympic champion Usyk, spoke in an interview with partners JD Sports:
“All these heavyweights are training because they want to take what you have so you have to train like you haven’t got anything.
“As a fighter, it’s important to stay in the gym all year round and I’ve known the fighter I’m fighting, so the approach to the fight has been leading towards the date.
“When I first turned pro, I did my first few training camps in Eddie’s [Hearn] back garden. That’s where we first started.
“Then, I moved to Tony Sims’ gym, for probably the first two or three fights, and then after that, I was allowed to train in Sheffield.
”I’ve been a pro for nine years, so for about seven or eight years I’ve been in Sheffield and this is my first time training out of there, but for 11 years, I trained with Rob.”
Anthony Joshua On Changing Trainer
McCracken was in the background during the embryonic stages of Joshua’s professional career, allowing the aforementioned Sims to take centre stage in the corner. He then stepped into the number one position and was there until after Joshua lost to Usyk last year.
McCracken, who has been heavily involved in the amateur game with Team GB and was also the head coach of former world super-middleweight champion Carl Froch, guided Finchley puncher Joshua to British, Commonwealth and world honours along the way as well as securing seismic wins against the likes of Wladimir Klitschko, Alexander Povetkin and Dillian Whyte.
Joshua, who is now training at Loughborough University, went to say why he chose Garcia:
“Texas, Fresno, LA, I saw a lot of coaches everywhere before choosing my new trainer – and there were coaches that I didn’t get to see – but he was the standout.”
“Robert Garcia is a bad boy coach.”