Robert Garcia would ‘love to’ continue working with Anthony Joshua as the former champion’s trainer search continues.
Garcia was brought in by Joshua to replace longtime coach, Rob McCracken, in preparations for his rematch against unified heavyweight champion, Oleksandr Usyk.
Joshua lost the fight in a similar fashion to the first, and has since seemingly split with Garcia. The trainer, who works out of Southern California, told Seconds Out that he would be up for continuing the relationship.
“I would love to [continue training Joshua]. When a fighter is jumping from one trainer to another from one fight to the other, it’s just not going to be good. It takes a few months just to get used to the new trainer, and I think since last December when I was going there for a couple of weeks and then again in March, and then four months of training camp together, I think it was enough to already get used to the trainer, the fighter, and the rest of the team.
Everybody thinks different … It might make things difficult. He actually called me and left me a message saying that he was going to come out to American to talk to different trainers, and that was kind of him for letting me know.”
“There are great trainers, you know Derrick James is a great trainer. It’s not like it’s going to be a bad choice, but they are going to start off from zero, so it might be a little bit difficult.”
Whilst Garcia was clear that there are great trainers on offer in the US, including a potential ‘AJ’ choice in Derrick James, he also said that it may not be a bad decision for the fighter to stay with just Angel Fernandez, who worked alongside Garcia in the corner for the Usyk rematch and has been an important part of Joshua’s team.
He went on to praise the former champion’s record in the sport, and said that how he performs in the next stage of career could be down to matchmaking as much as coaching.
“He’s an athlete that was born to be what he is. He never ever had that many years in the amateurs and still was able to get a gold medal.
He came back to become a world champion without that much experience. So he already is a brilliant athlete and very talented. He’s got great, great power. Those things will help him win the next fights if they pick the right opponents.”
Finally, Garcia cleared up reports that he had previously hinted some reluctance from Joshua to train. He made it clear that he was speaking generally and not from experience with the Brit.
“I didn’t say AJ did that. I said fighters can’t say ‘I’m tired today’ but I meant to every fighter … It’s just the way boxing is.”
“I wasn’t saying Anthony has that problem, no. Anthony’s an athlete. He trains. He loves to stay in shape. Even when he’s not in training camp, he’s always working out.”
Promoter Eddie Hearn has told fans that there will be an announcement before the turn of the year as to Joshua training team and next opponent.