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Canelo Alvarez and Ryan Garcia had a friendly, big brother, little brother-like relationship over the last few years.
In Oct. 2018, Garcia decided to join Alvarez’s camp to train alongside the Mexican star boxer as well as lifelong coach and confidant, Eddy Reynoso. Garcia developed under the guidance of the group and scored five wins and stoppages.
Garcia was co-featured on Alvarez undercards and the undisputed super middleweight champion even sat ringside to support the budding boxer, but the cordial relationship and pleasantries all seemed to come to a sudden crash after Garcia separated from Alvarez and Reynoso in February and joined forces with Joe Goossen.
Months prior to the breakup, Alvarez questioned Garcia’s dedication and discipline to the sport while Garcia was dealing with mental health issues and a hand injury.
Garcia attributed his departure from Team Canelo due to the fact that Reynoso could not be 100% committed to training him. He later added that he was tired and fed up with Alvarez’s “shocking criticism.”
Garcia recently reignited Alvarez’s ire when he predicted Gennadiy Golovkin would beat Alvarez when the two meet in their trilogy fight on Sept. 17 on DAZN PPV at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
After learning of Garcia’s prediction, Alvarez again unloaded a barrage of verbal blows on the upstart lightweight contender.
“He’s just mad for something – he’s no longer in the team. He’s always going to be versus us no matter what. But he’s a little kid. You need to understand him. He needs to learn a lot of things. My advice for him is to do your job, focus on your career, win a world championship first, then talk about other people because you’ve accomplished nothing and you start talking about fighters who’ve accomplished a lot. When I was 20-year-old I was a world champion,” Alvarez told Ak & Barak in an interview on DAZN.
“You can call out everybody and say and talk and everything but at the end of the day, you are doing nothing. It is what is. We need to understand him now that he’s no longer with the Canelo team. He’s going to talk mad sh!t about us. It’s fine. But he needs to remember how much Eddy did for him. A lot of things. He and his father still owe money to Eddy and Eddy doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t need it. It’s not fair that he’s talking sh!t about everything in the camp. He came to my gym and we showed him love and support. He then goes and says anything. He’s not grateful. When a person is ungrateful, it’s the worst thing.”
Aside from the wrath, Alvarez still supports his former teammate.
“Of course [I will still root for him when he fights]. Why not? Yeah, I’m not jealous. I just wish all of the best for him,” said Alvarez.
Garcia next faces Javier Fortuna on July 16 on DAZN, but the matchup Garcia most desires is a super fight against Gervonta Davis.
Alvarez has admitted several times that Davis is his favorite boxer to watch, and he’s siding with Tank in a potential tilt against Garcia.
“I don’t really think so [that Garcia can beat Davis]. Not yet,” said Alvarez. “If he puts his mind to boxing and tries to learn everything, he can do a lot of things. He has a lot of talent.”
Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist, writer and broadcast reporter. He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and MMA Journalists Association. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan, via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com or on www.ManoukAkopyan.com.