The former trainer of Anthony Joshua has revealed how he told the British fighter’s management team to fly him home early from a training camp before the 36-year-old’s second loss to Oleksandr Usyk.
Former IBF junior lightweight champion Garcia worked with Joshua ahead of his rematch with the Ukrainian last year. But after the Watford-born star lost again, the two parted ways.
Since then, both men have exchanged some less-than-positive words about each other in the fight’s aftermath.
Joshua recently bigged up his new trainer Derrick James and took the opportunity to compare him to Garcia, claiming that the latter made him feel like he wasn’t being taught anything new.
But 48-year-old Garcia, who is currently in Las Vegas ahead of this Saturday’s showdown between Errol Spence and Terence Crawford, has lifted the lid on what he considered to be a poor environment inside Joshua’s camp, leading up to the headline contest with Uysk in Saudi Arabia on August 20, 2022.
Speaking about his time with Joshua to Boxing News, Garcia said: “When I first got to camp I wasn’t very happy with what are saw going on in his training camp. And I told his team ‘fly me home. I don’t want to be part of this. I’m not going to be part of this. You guys have got to fly me home.’
“They convinced me to stay. So if that was the case I think Anthony should have said ‘let hm go’ because I don’t want to work with him. I don’t feel comfortable with him.”
When the reporter asked Garcia if his feelings about leaving the camp were put back to Joshua by his management team, he said: “That’s probably something the management team never even brought up to Anthony. Because if they would have, he would have said ‘I don’t feel comfortable with Rob, let him go.’
“Honestly, I did tell these guys ‘send me home’. I don’t want to stay here because I know it’s not going to work out with the way camp was going with other people that were involved. I don’t need to say any names. You know, I told them ‘Fly me home. I don’t want to stay here. It’s not going to work.'”
Joshua will return to ring without Garcia when he faces Dillian Whyte at The O2 in London on Saturday, August 12. The two fighters previously met in 2015, with Joshua winning via technical knock-out in the seventh round.