ANTHONY JOSHUA has confirmed Robert Garcia as his new coach ahead of July or August’s rematch with Oleksandr Usyk.
The Brit is looking to reclaim the WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles after losing them convincingly last year in London.
Joshua will this time meet Usyk in Saudi Arabia at the Jeddah Super Dome.
And his new coach for the fight will be former IBF super-featherweight champ Garcia, who was named trainer of the year for 2011.
Joshua has also pinpointed where Garcia can help him win back the belts.
Joshua, 32, said in an interview with iFL TV: “The main thing is: A happy fighter is a dangerous fighter. I’m in a good place.
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“I’m good, I’m happy, I’m about to start training now.
“Garcia’s actually here now, we’re just working on a few things. It’s not about changing style as such, in my opinion.
“Garcia’s style might be to crouch down to 5’0 and bob and weave, but I’m a 6’6” heavyweight.
“So, it’s not about style, it’s about his experience and what he knows at championship level; adding that to the camp is priceless in my opinion.”
Coach Garcia has called on Joshua to believe in himself if he’s to get back to the top of the heavyweight mountain.
He told Boxing King Media in December: “If Anthony hires me as a trainer, he’s the main guy. But if he hires me, I’m the boss and he’s going to do what I tell him to do.
“You’re going to train the way I want you to train, and you’re going to follow instructions. If you’re not, then choose somebody else.
“I think Anthony is more talented than both Usyk and Fury. They’re great fighters. Usyk had a great win, he’s a great style, he’s difficult and Fury is the man at heavyweight right now.
“But I still think that Anthony Joshua has more skills and when you’re talking about skills he’s got to believe in himself.
“He’s got to believe that his skills are good enough to beat both of them, and he’s got to do it.
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“He needs to say, ‘Maybe I could take a punch from those guys, but they won’t be able to take my punches,’ you’ve got to have that mentality.”
Garcia continued: “I’ve been working with so many other fighters that have that same problem, you’ve got to change that, you’ve got to change their mentality and the way they think. You can’t be nice in the ring.”
