Robert Garcia is well known around the boxing world for not only being a really good fighter in his time, but also becoming one of the top trainers in the entire sport. That said, Garcia hasn’t been known for his work with heavyweights, and while some question whether or not he’ll be able to mesh well with Joshua, Garcia tells Sky Sports things have been good so far.
In particular, Garcia mentions his approach to training Joshua for this rematch and speaks on his mindset when entering this this new relationship with an already established star in the sport, which can sometimes be tricky. For Garcia, it’s business first, and personal relationship later.
“I came in not to be Anthony’s friend. I told him you might not like us and there’s been times when he’s not happy with us, but I don’t care. I want him to win,” Garcia said. “Sunday morning after the fight, he’s going to be happy because the results are there.”
Garcia continued by explaining how he learned early in his training career that there needs to be well established boundaries with his fighters — as he does the instructing, and the fighters do the work.
“We told Anthony, look you might not like us during training camp. We’re going to push you to do everything we want you to do. There’s going to be days that you’re going to complain about us and yeah, those days have been there where [he thinks,] ‘You guys don’t give me credit for things that I do right.’ Well, that’s good because we want you to do more. But after the fight you’re going to like us. You’re going to thank us.”
At this point, however, camp has effectively come to a close and Garcia is confident that Joshua knows well what he needs to do in order to get the job done on Saturday, and emphasizes that Joshua needs to take that confidence with him into the fight. Should Garcia have things go according to plan, he’ll be pushing Joshua to go for the knockout.