Anthony Joshua has been pictured working out at legendary trainer Virgil Hunter’s gym in Los Angeles as he explores his coaching options in the lead-up to his return to the ring in March. The Watford powerhouse had been working with Robert Garcia at his base camp at Loughborough University but recently expressed a desire to switch up his training.
AJ recruited the services of Garcia after axing long-time mentor Rob McCracken following his inaugural encounter with Oleksandr Usyk in August. At the time, Joshua stated that he needed to create a ‘happy environment’ after sustaining the second loss of his professional career.
Joshua sampled several gyms in America before choosing Garcia including Eddy Reynoso, Ronnie Shields, and the aforementioned Hunter. Hunter has worked with a number of world champions including Andre Ward, Amir Khan, Demetrius Andrade, and Argenis Mendez, but doesn’t have a wealth of experience in training heavyweights – the only notable one on his current roster is Chazz Witherspoon.
Speculation began to grow about Joshua’s coaching situation after the two-time heavyweight champion told Sporting News that he wanted to be a ‘free spirit’ when it comes to his training during a ringside interview at the Dmitry Bivol vs Gilberto Ramirez fight last month.
“The Roy Jones situation, I can tell you now, there’s been no official conversations about Roy Jones coming into the camp at all. AJ was out in Abu Dhabi for the Bivol fight, I think Roy was there as well, they were talking,” said 258 Management’s head of boxing Will Harvey to Seconds Out.
“Roy’s a Hall of Famer, AJ’s going to chew his ear off and get advice from him but that’s as far as it’s gone about bringing Roy into the setup and there have been no official conversations about changing the set-up that we’ve got at the moment. It’s all hearsay and speculation at the moment.”