Robert Garcia claims that his recent interview with a Spanish outlet has been “mistranslated”.
The new head coach of Anthony Joshua is quoted as saying that the former two-time unified world heavyweight champion “mentally beat himself” in his last fight.
Joshua was on the wrong end of a decision defeat to Oleksandr Usyk at the Jeddah Superdome in Saudi Arabia as the pair clashed for the WBA Super, IBF, IBO and WBO titles in the sport’s premier division.
The 32-year-old dropped an inexplicable split points verdict against the Ukrainian earlier this month and Garcia has denied having a pop at the former Olympic champion.
He claims his interview with Izquierdazo has been taken out of context and spoke to ES News about the fact that there seems to have been a misunderstanding.
He said:
“There’s been a few that I’ve read that they’ve actually sent to me, saying ‘did you really say that?’ I haven’t talked to anybody, especially in English, you’re the first person I’m talking to.
“I spoke to a Spanish reporter that I know so I gave him a little interview, but from Spanish translated to English, they make it seem like, ‘Oh, Robert is talking s***’, pretty much.
“I wouldn’t say that about my fighters, man. I’ve never done it before and I never will.”
Garcia recently issued his latest recruit with a relocation ultimatum after travelling to Loughborough University to prepare his man for the unsuccessful return against Ukrainian star Usyk, who moved to 20-0 (13 KOs) with the win over Joshua after he picked up Tyson Fury’s old Ring Magazine title.
He continued:
“The headline is, ‘Robert says Anthony mentally beat himself’ but I never said that.
“I said that Usyk after being hurt really bad in the ninth he came in the 10th like that never happened, he came strong which you’ve got to applaud that. So that’s not saying ‘oh, Anthony was beat mentally’. Usyk came back strong and dominated those three rounds.
“I said ‘look, Usyk being the winner, the champion and Anthony grabbing the belts that’s disrespecting the champion’. But Anthony was frustrated. F*** he hates to lose. He came back and apologised and everything was good.”
After his loss to 35-year-old Usyk, who is a former undisputed world champion at cruiserweight, Joshua hinted that he wanted a quick return to the ring as he looks to get back to winning ways sooner rather than later.