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Chris Algieri admits that at first he was surprised that Anthony Joshua opted to hire Robert Garcia as his new lead trainer, not because Garcia isn’t a top flight trainer, but rather because he’s not known for his work with heavyweight fighters. But thinking more about it, Algieri says he’s trained under Garcia himself and believes it could be a good pairing as Garcia brings certain character traits that could benefit Joshua for his impending rematch with Oleksandr Usyk.
“He’s one of those guys, he understands the fight game,” Algieri said. “He has an eye that’s very special, that he can see things in the ring, that he can see talent in certain fighters. He’s the kind of guy personality-wise when you speak to him it’s: I trust this man, he’s going to look out for me, he’s going to do what needs to be done. So it makes sense from that point of view. Maybe not so much on paper but in terms of personality it does.”
Aligeri would go on to say that even if the two mesh well together, it’s very difficult to produce dramatic changes in a fighter’s style in only one training camp, especially one so far along in his professional career.
What will be truly telling, according to Algieri, is how well Joshua will be able to communicate and implement instructions from Garcia. Expecting Joshua to turn into a come-forward brawler for this rematch is highly improbably, but Algieri would continue to say that Joshua could find success fighting in a boxer-puncher style, particularly because Robert Garcia himself fought in that kind of style during his professional fighting days.
How well this all turns out for Joshua still remains to be seen, but we won’t have to wait all that long before we see the results of the change, with Joshua set to face Usyk once again on August 20.