Famed coach Robert Garcia confirmed that he has left former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua. Garcia's parting advice to Joshua is this: If you want to get back to the top, you have to get out of your comfort zone.
Last September, Joshua lost to Orekosande Usyk and lost the WBA, IBF, WBO titles. After that, Joshua parted ways with longtime coach Robert McCracken, and in order to avenge Usyk, he specially hired American coach Garcia as the new coach.
Under Garcia's guidance, Joshua played a rematch with Usyk in August, which improved but was still not enough to win and eventually lost again 1-2 on aggregate.
Joshua was scheduled to return to the court at the end of this year, but it failed for various reasons, one of which was that he was looking for a new coach in the United States, which delayed his comeback plan. It is understood that Joshua has rescheduled to return to boxing in the first quarter of 2023, when it is highly likely that he will have a rematch with old rival Delian White.
Garcia has trained Mitch Garcia, Marcus Madana, Brandon Ríos, Nanito Donaire, and Jesse Bam Rodriguez, who is expected to be named to the 2022 Rookie of the Year. Now, Garcia has officially confirmed that he and Joshua have ended their cooperation, and stressed that the two sides have a friendly breakup, while Garcia confessed that his schedule for 2023 is also an important reason for him to leave Joshua.
"Joshua called me and told me what he was doing, and I respected him, understood the way he looked at things and sincerely wished Joshua all the best," Garcia said. As far as I know, Joshua is going to play sometime next spring and I have to go to England to help him prepare, which is very difficult for me because I'm going to train Jose Ramirez to play at about the same time, so I can't get out, I can only train one person, and I want Joshua to be ready for his own race. ”
Joshua has spent most of his career training with McCracken in Sheffield, moving training camp to Loughborough after working with Garcia earlier this year. Garcia's advice for Joshua's future is to work hard and don't find reasons to interfere with training.
Garcia said: "Before I left Joshua, tell him and everyone on the team, whoever took over Joshua, whether that person is me or not, Joshua needs to change the atmosphere of the camp, he should go to the United States, he has to work hard in training, work with young people who look up to you, you can't say I'm tired, or I didn't sleep enough last night and it affected today's training work," Garcia said. ”
Some time ago, Joshua went to the United States, communicated with Errol Spence and Jimmel Charlot's coach Derek James, and shared a large number of videos of working in each other's gyms. Joshua was also photographed in Los Angeles to visit another famous coach, Virgil Hunt, who is the coach of 175-pound light heavyweight Joshua Butesy.
It is widely believed that Joshua will choose one of James and Hunter as the new coach. Garcia also shared his views on this, saying: "It's not a question of who is better than James or Hunter, or whether I'm better than Joshua's previous coach. Next, Joshua needs to step out of his comfort zone and not think of himself as a boss, he needs to work in a tense, tough environment. Joshua is gifted, his powers are insane, and he must believe in himself. ”