On Friday the news broke that Vergil Ortiz was no longer going to be training with Robert Garcia. The news broke via a reporter live on ESPN and then via twitter. Robert Garcia and son (Pita) released a video explaining their side of the story. Vergil Ortiz Jr. and Vergil Ortiz Sr. both shared their replies to this reporter (via Twitter) asking if they (Team Ortiz) could confirm if they were joining trainer Eddy Reynoso in San Diego, CA . Both Jr. and Sr. Ortiz, were very clear in answering that the move to Reynoso was not true. Dan Raphael tweeted out that the team was considering a move of trainers and Vergil Ortiz Jr. thanked Raphael for reporting with the correct wording opposed to the first reporter to break the news.
From the video posted by the Garcia’s via YouTube we learned that the split with Team Ortiz came two or three weeks ago, when both son and father visited the gym in Riverside to tell Robert that they were no longer going to train with him. Robert shared that the main reason Vergil Sr. gave him was that he wasn’t there in his son’s corner for his last fight versus Egis Kavaliauskas last August. A second reason was in regards to sparring but nothing in detail was explained and other reasons were not shared. Both Joshua Franco and Vergil Ortiz had fight dates of August 14th. Franco was scheduled to fight in Tulsa Oklahoma and Ortiz was scheduled to fight in Frisco, Texas. Originally Robert and manager Rick Mirigian contemplated flying the 240 miles from one city to the other to try to attend both fights. It was reported a helicopter would take roughly 45 minutes but that the networks ESPN and DAZN were not willing to change any time slots to accommodate Robert and the two main events were scheduled to take place simultaneously.
This forced Robert to make a decision on what fight he would attend. In the past Robert and his team had split duties before. In 2010 when two of his fighters were scheduled to have championship bouts on the same day in two different countries. Robert helped corner Brian Viloria’s championship bout in New York, while his father helped Steven Luevano in the Philippines. In March of 2018 the team had to split again to cover fights in Texas and California. Robert and part of the team went to Texas to corner Mikey Garcia, Louie Coria, Misael Rodriguez, Alejandro Guerrero and Louie Coria while his son Pita and others helped corner fights at the StubHub in Carson, CA for Erick Deleon, Esquiva Falcao and Bryan Lua.
The first conflict of fight dates that affected Vergil Ortiz first took place in January of 2019 when Josesito Lopez was scheduled to fight in New York versus Keith Thurman and Vergil was scheduled to fight on the undercard of Jaime Munguia in Houston, TX. What threw the entire team in for a loop was that January 26th was the dateRobert’s daughter was celebrating her 15th birthday (Quinceñera). Eventually the quinceñera was re-scheduled for a different weekend and Robert was able to attend Josesito’s fight in New York and Pita Garcia was able to assist Vergil Ortiz Sr. and Hector Beltran Sr. in Ortiz Jr. corner.
In the summer of 2020 Vergil Ortiz was scheduled to fight Sammy Vargas after the fight was postponed from an earlier date. During this bout, Robert Garcia tested positive for Covid-19 and wasn’t allowed to corner Vergil’s bout vs Vargas. Pita Garcia didn’t attend this fight either. This time Vergil Ortiz Sr. and Hector Beltran Sr. handled the corner on their own. There was one fight in between the Vargas bout and Vergil Jr.’s last bout versus Kavaliauskas which was the Maurice Hooker bout where the team was complete.
In the interview via Robert Garcia’s Unfiltered on YouTube channel he explained why he made the choice to attend Joshua Franco’s bout. He stated that the deck was stacked heavily against Franco as he was Golden Boy fighter going in as the B side fighter on a Top Rank promoted show. Although he (Franco) was the champ, the A side fighter was Top Rank prompted fighter Andrew Moloney and was favored to win. The second fight between Moloney and Franco ended in a huge controversy over and second round head butt. This furthered Robert’s decision to help corner Franco instead of going to Texas to be in the corner for Vergil.
Later in the interview Robert disclosed that he now thinks if he would have gone to Vergil’s fight to help him, he still thinks Franco would have won the trilogy bout versus Moloney that night. He also said that he received many calls from different friends and business associates advising him to go assist team Ortiz in Texas instead of being there for Franco. Robert also disclosed that the pay day for Vergil’s bout was three times the size of his cut for Franco’s bout. Clearly the decision here was not based on monetary compensation but who he honestly at the time believed needed more help. Robert did mention that Franco had been with him since the amateurs and that he pro-debuted with him and his team. That might have played a role in the decision as well. Vergil Ortiz was heavily recruited by Robert as an amateur as well but Vergil Ortiz and his father Ortiz Sr. decided to train with Antonio Diaz in Indio,CA since they knew him from the many amateur tournaments they were involved in for years. It’s important to note that most people recognize Joel Diaz as the head of the Diaz team, which may be true but the Ortiz's have always been firm in their statements that they chose the team in Indio, CA because of their familiarity with Antonio not Joel.
Both fighters went on to win their respective bouts. Franco retained his championship in a twelve round decision in Tulsa Oklahoma and Ortiz won by eighth round TKO in Frisco, Texas.
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