There’s so many steps in the process of training a fighter, and it all rushed upon Robert Garcia Saturday night as he met his unbeaten junior middleweight Vergil Ortiz Jr. at the close of the ninth round.
Ortiz, 26, had fought 21 prior bouts without ever reaching the 10th round.
And here he was – trailing narrowly on all scorecards, finding that WBC interim 154-pound champion Serhii Bohachuk was not caving to an onslaught of power punches – requiring the right words and an adjustment.
“These last three rounds, we need them,” Garcia said to Ortiz. “Vergil, let’s get these three rounds, and you’re a world champion.”
That was the inspiration. There was instruction, too.
“We knew the fight was close, it was going back and forth,” Garcia recounted to BoxingScene Monday. “We knew we had to secure those last three rounds to secure the win and we knew there was no way we were going to knock this guy out. We had to score points.”
The solution: more jabs. Ortiz had thrown only 30 combined jabs in rounds eight and nine. Between rounds 10 through 12, he threw 99. Many didn’t land, but the jabbing calmed Bohachuk’s attack and it increased the volume of Ortiz’s power punches, impressing the judges and deciding the outcome by the scantest of margins: 113-113, 114-112, 114-112.
“To use the jab a lot more, to get in and out with combinations instead of swinging one hard punch. That was very important,” Garcia said.
“We already know who Vergil Ortiz is because we know his mentality. As exhausted as he was, he’s not going to give up and he’s not going to stop. That showed the last three rounds. By using that jab, stepping back and counterpunching, he did very well. We told him, ‘I need to see two-three good punches, just score points.’ He listened.”
It was a defining moment for Ortiz, who produced the gritty triumph by rising from two knockdowns, doing so in front of the sport’s new major powerbroker, Saudi Arabia’s Turki Alalshikh, who said he next wants to see Ortiz in a lucrative match against newly crowned four-division and WBA junior-middleweight champion Terence Crawford.
For Garcia, the triumph capped a remarkable string of four victories over six weeks that should clinch his second selection as Boxing Writers Assn. of America trainer of the year after first winning the honor in 2012.
Starting with his new WBC super-flyweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez’s knockout of veteran champion Juan Francisco Estrada in late June, Garcia has watched his fighters follow in victory, with unbeaten lightweight Raymond Muratalla defeating former champion Tevin Farmer and 140-pounder Jose “Rayo” Valenzuela upsetting then-champion Isaac “Pitbull” Cruz Aug. 3.
A former super featherweight champion from Oxnard, Calif., who has since shifted his training base to a rural setting in Riverside, Calif., Garcia said he can only recall being on one similar career roll like this.
From late 2013 through 2014, his younger brother Mikey Garcia won two super featherweight title fights, Evgeny Gradovich captured the IBF featherweight belt, Jesus Cuellar claimed another featherweight belt, Marcos Maidana beat Adrien Broner and fought Floyd Mayweather Jr. twice and Brandon Rios lost to Manny Pacquiao in China.
“I never in my life imagined that I’d be where I’m at,” Garcia said. “I started it for fun in 2002 with two of my best friends, including Felipe Campa, who’s still with me.
“What I enjoyed was traveling with the fighters and not having to make weight or go to bed early myself anymore. When I fought, I traveled and never enjoyed it. So that’s why I did it. I never thought of making champions. Honestly.”
Yet, here he is, guiding a packed gym filled with driven and respectful fighters who make it a habit to both shake the hands of visitors to their gym and to pour their souls into the work.
The schedule never sleeps.
From inside his gym Monday morning, Garcia spoke to BoxingScene in excited tones. Yes, the Ortiz victory made his weekend, but his fighter Lindolfo Delgado also shined on Saturday’s Top Rank Card in Albuquerque, N.M., and Albert “Chop Chop” Gonzalez was so impressive, Top Rank signed him to a multi-fight contract.
Likely in late September, Garcia will send his former unified 140-pound champion Jose Ramirez to fight unbeaten Arnold Barboza Jr., and in an expected November bout, top-five pound-for-pound Rodriguez will rematch Estrada.
If there’s a description for the culture of what Garcia has created it’s respect and commitment for the hard work, the same tenets he learned under his father, Eduardo, who still frequents the gym known as Robert Garcia Boxing Academy.
“The main thing (fighters) see from my dad, myself and my older fighters is everybody being humble, nobody demanding any extra attention, everyone believing in the others,” Robert Garcia said. “And I have a team with all the fighters. Everybody shakes hands, with each other, with my dad. (Ramirez is) 32 today and he’s still doing it. The guys see that, they’re not going to bring a different mentality to my gym.”
Indeed, on Friday at his Las Vegas weigh-in, 21-year-old Garcia fighter Figo Ramirez approached a reporter who’d recently visited the Riverside gym and shook his hand.
“They grow up knowing that’s necessary,” Garcia said.
Then, they shake up the boxing world.
Valenzuela knocked off perhaps Mexico’s most beloved active fighter by brilliantly out-boxing Cruz from his left-handed stance.
Ortiz (22-0, 21 KOs) staged the front-runner for fight of the year.
After the fight Saturday, Garcia said he approves of Alalshikh’s plans to send Ortiz in there against Crawford, who’ll turn 37 next month, even after Ortiz’s famed promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, said a few days earlier that he saw former 154-pound champion Tim Tszyu of Australia as a better choice for Ortiz’s next bout.
“It all depends on when they want Vergil back. I don’t know the plan, but I would go straight to Crawford because I think Vergil needed something like this after knocking out everyone – this tough fight.
“Crawford’s style is nowhere near Serhii’s. It’ll be less of a tough fight and more of a technical fight – who’s the smarter guy? Strength, power and smarts. Vergil’s a very smart fighter. It’s just that on Saturday night, he was forced to fight a war.”
Garcia said he wants Ortiz to take a couple months off, returning perhaps on Alalshikh’s planned February 2025 card in Saudi Arabia.
“Perfect, he needs to rest,” Garcia said.
The way things are going, it’d be nice if Garcia had a break next year, to go to New York and gather his trainer of the year award.
“It would be awesome, but it’s never just about me,” Garcia said. “It’s about the team, the dads, my assistants, the family, my son, our conditioning coach.
“It would be a team win, not just me.”
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