‘This guy teaches you’: how Robert Garcia can help Joshua against Usyk

At this point Robert Garcia is no stranger to boxing’s biggest stages. As a fighter, the southern California native captured the IBF junior lightweight title and defended it twice before finding his true calling as a cornerman, where he’s trained no fewer than 14 world champions over more than two decades out of his flagship gym in the coastal town of Oxnard, some 60 miles north-west of Los Angeles.

Should Anthony Joshua defy the oddsmakers against Oleksandr Usyk in Saturday night’s rematch in Saudi Arabia and regain the WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight titles he surrendered in their one-sided first instalment last year, there may be no bigger difference-maker than the 47-year-old Mexican-American trainer entrusted with drawing up the gameplan that was so conspicuously absent the first time around.

“The fact that Robert is a former champion and was a fighter makes a huge difference in the way that he communicates to his athletes,” says Chris Algieri, the former WBO welterweight champion who trained under Garcia for several years in Oxnard. “Not all fighters were high level when they competed but Robert was, so his ability to be able to communicate and use the right words to get his fighters – whether they need to be fired up or they need to be more disciplined – he knows how to turn that extra knob to get the most out of them.”

That rapport, both in the training that’s behind them and in the career-defining fight ahead, could prove crucial to Joshua’s hopes. His comprehensive defeat by Usyk last September at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was, above all, a tactical catastrophe. Rather than press his natural advantages in height, reach and power, Joshua curiously attempted to outbox the superior boxer in front of him. As the