Anthony Joshua's new trainer Robert Garcia believes that he should again mix up his camp and move out to California where he has his gym.
The Brit made wholesale changes for his world heavyweight title rematch with Oleksandr Usyk earlier this month including replacing Rob McCracken, his long-time coach, with Garcia. He even made a locational switch, moving his camp down from Sheffield to London in order to accommodate his new team and change surroundings.
Unfortunately Joshua was unable to do enough in Saudi Arabia to become world champion and will have to rebuild again now without any obligation to a world title fight. He will do that under Garcia's tutelage with the same team that took him to the Usyk fight, and the American wants him to come to his home for the next one.
“I told Anthony and all his team that, for me, the best way to keep working together is if Anthony comes to train in my gym in California eight weeks before a fight”, Robert García told Izquierdazo. “From six to eight weeks, that’s all I need for a good camp.
“I told Anthony, ‘I need you to be around more fighters, more champions, I want you to have more fighters for competition, even if they are from the same gym, but you have to compete'. You have to want to be better than them, and they will want to be better than you. It will work for all of you.
“That is what is missing in his gym, the fighters to be competing against each other, where they don’t want the other fighter to do more than you. He needs a place with other world champions around. Anthony has always been alone in his camps, he didn’t have other fighters to train with.
Do you believe that Anthony Joshua will ever be world heavyweight champion again? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
"He needs to be in a cheerful environment, to interact with other fighters, other sparring partners. I think that that would help him a lot. I am a boxing man, and I told them that I know that he needs to be in a challenging gym. The other fighters will push him to do more and more. That helps a lot”.
Garcia has a gym in Oxnard, California where he has trained 14 world champions including Chris Algieri and Nonito Donaire. He wants Joshua to relocate there in order to truly feel the benefits of his coaching, which did show at times in a solid performance against Usyk even though the result didn't go their way.
“Everyone else in the team is willing to train in California," Garcia added. "I had a very nice conversation with them before leaving, and everyone agrees that this is what he needs.
"They said that they will talk to Anthony, and that they will need to convince him this is the best for him. In the end, he can decide differently, but his team accepted that the best option is to leave the UK and come to California for his training camp”.
