2012 BWAA trainer of the year Robert Garcia and his team started their week in Fresno, CA. Fresno is a city in the Central Valley in California and it served as the host to Robert's younger brother, Mikey Garcia's main event bout this Saturday. Mikey was up against a tough Southpaw from Spain, Sandor Martin. The promoter of the event, Matchroom Boxing has been making a push in the United States market for a few years now. The president Eddie Hearn has talent from all over the world but recently signed young talented fighters from the U.S. to help him break into the market. Just to name a few, Diego Pacheco from Los Angeles, Nikita Ababiy from New York, Reshat Mati from New Jersey and Alexis Espino from Las Vegas. All these fighters have been helping Hearn fill the undercards of his boxing events.
The week for Mikey started in Fresno to help promote the event that took place at Chukchansi Park, a field home to a minor league baseball team, the Grizzlies. Local promoter/manager Rick Mirigian had a long list of apppearances for Mikey in order to help promote the event. Along with Mikey was his brother/trainer Robert Garcia and his father/trainer Eduardo "Big G" Garcia.
Back in Riverside the team continued to work with the rest of the stable. Five fighters had fights lined up for the weekend. Four fighters were scheduled to showcase their talent in San Diego, CA, America's finest city on Bob Arum's Top Rank Inc. event at the Pechanga Arena on Friday. The Co-main event of the fight was non other than local undefeated welter weight Giovani "Gallo de Oro" Santillan, that has recently been training in Riverside with Robert and his team. On the under card was 2016 Mexican Olympian undefeated junior welterweight Lindolfo Delgado of Linares, Nuevo Leon, MX, undefeated middleweight prospect Javier "Milwaukee Made" Martinez of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the pro-debut for Antonio Mireles of Iowa City, Iowa, all of whom train under Robert Garcia. The only fighter of the stable fighting on Saturday on the undercard of Mikey was undefeated sensational southpaw Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez of San Antonio, TX. He is the younger brother of WBA World Champion Joshua "The Professor" Franco.
Robert's team consists of several trainers. Robert's right hand man on his team is his son Robert Garcia Jr., known as Pita, short for Grandpita. I haven't added up the number of fights Pita has been along side his father and grandfather but my best guess is that it's north of 250 professional bouts, making him one of the youngest and most experienced trainers for boxing in the world. Along with Pita is trainer Jose Contreras that goes by the nickname, Chepe. Chepe has been with the team for a few years now and was first introduced to the team when he was involved as a trainee in the Oxnard facility gym. Chepe's mom is the camp house cook and cooks meals for fighters that are living in Riverside preparing for an up and coming fights. Sometimes there can be anywhere from half a dozen fighters up to fifteen fighters staying at the location which is a reasonable tasks in itself. In the last couple months Robert has added long time friend Arturo Tovar to the team in Riverside. Art was part of the team back when the gym was in Oxnard, CA. He is very familar with Robert
style of training and picked up right where he left off. He was a big part of getting all the fighters ready for their bouts. Robert's dad has recently been coming to the gym on a daily basis after his wife passed away last year in December. I've talked to the Big G several times when I visit the gym and he says that coming to the gym daily helps him stay busy. He says that he is retired from the sport but he is still very vigilant of all of Mikey's training camps and this one was no exception. He has been heavily involved in all of his son's boxing careers and comes across as a strict trainer that likes his fighters to cross all their I's and T's before stepping in the ring on fight night.
In the past Robert has associated with Strength and Conditioning coaches but when he transitioned from Oxnard to Riverside back in 2016, he primarily allowed the fighters flexibility to choose who they wanted to work with in terms of conditioning. Some of the fighters originally chose to work with Pita and Chepe for conditioning others chose to workd outsid of the gym. One of the S&C coaches many of the fighters chose to work with was Nate Arreola of El Monte, CA. Nate continues to work with many boxers and is currently helping a boxer from another gym, Jojo Diaz of El Monte, CA.
Back in 2018 when Robert started working with World Champion Jose Ramirez of Avenal, CA, Ramirez brought his own S&C Coach in Charles Trembley of Fight Force Athletics. Since being introduced to the team in 2018 Trembley has transformed into the S&C trainer for the entire stable. Trembley has helped in getting Joshua Franco ready for his first world title bout versus Andrew Moloney and has helped Vergil Ortiz of Grand Prairie, TX get ready for the majority of his most recent fights. Trembley has recently earned his doctorate degree and has a long list of other fascinating accomplishments.
Back to this weekend. The team was split in duties between the two events. It sounds like Robert and Charles started their week in Fresno with Mikey and Bam while Pita, Chepe and Art continued to work with the stable in Riverside then eventually made their way to San Diego to help four fighters make weight on Thursday for their fights on Friday. Robert at some point joined the team on Friday and helped coach four fighters to four wins, then jumped in a van with his cousin Melena, his retired fighter Felipe Campas and legendary YouTuber Ellie Sechback of EsNews to drive from San Diego to Fresno.
The first win of the night on Friday was a pro debut for 6'9" heavyweight Antonio Mireles of Iowa City, Iowa. He dropped his opponent in the first round and then dropped him a second time and the fight was stopped. Mireles has been training for a few months in Riverside, CA with the team.
The second win of the night for the team came via middleweight prospect Javier Martinez of Milwaukee, WI. Martinez was in there with a tough durable opponent in Darryl Jones. The bout went the full six rounds. This is Martinez second time fighting six rounders. There was a moment there in the fifth round where Martinez looked to be hurt and would not throw punches in return. Eventually Martinez returned to his normal pace and began to attack regularly. Coach Robert was heard in the corner telling his fighter that if he threw a ten punch combination he could very possibly stop his opponent. There were a couple times where Martinez followed his coaches desires and threw punches in bunches.
The third win of the night was produced by 2016 Mexican Olympian undefeated junior welterweight Lindolfo Delgado. For the first five years of Delgado's career he was promoted by Richard Schaefer's RingStar Sports. He has now departed with Schaefer and has signed with Fresno's Rick Mirigian and Top Rank. This is his third fight under the Las Vegas based promotional company. There were no significant knockdowns in the fight and it went the entire eight rounds that it was scheduled. He is now 14-0 with a total of 12 KOs.
The fourth win was the co-main event of the night. The fight was a classsic San Diego versus Tijuana competition. Giovani "Gallo de Oro" Santillan from San Diego was up against Tijuana's Angel "El Relampago" Ruiz. Ruiz started off really strong and fast but by the fourth round Santillan had weathered the best Ruiz had to offer and he started to dictate the pace and get the better of the exchanges. This was a really competitive fight and the crowd rallied for their respective favorites. Santillan used the jab and rolled under many of Ruiz' flurries. It was an entertaining fight for the people. Santillan's father/coach Memo played an assistant role in the corner and that allowed Robert to do what some people say is one of his best roles in boxing, a head cornerman in the ring. Edward Hernandez Sr. scored the fight 99-91 for Santillan and both Lou Moret and Alejandro Rochin scored 100-90 for Santillan granting him his 28th win in his pro career. This was his second fight with Robert Garcia and team RGBA.
In Fresno Jesse "Bam" Rodriguez stole the show with a 4th round brutal TKO over his opponent Alejandro Burgos. Burgos is an opponent of his older brother from a couple years ago. His brother Franco stopped Burgos in the 9th round in spectacular fashion in front of a hometown crowd in San Antonio in January of 2020. Bam is claimed to be one of the most talented boxers in Robert's gym. He was signed to Teiken promotions at the young age of seventeen. He has showcased his talent on some of the biggest fights in the U.S. He's landed on the undercards of Wilder/Fury I, GGG vs Martirosyan, Mikey/Spence, Mikey/J.Vargas and now Mikey/Sandor. His record now stands at 14-0 with 10 KO's. Please keep an eye out for this very talented mini Flyweight from San Antonio, TX.
I have to put out this disclaimer that I missed the first five rounds of the main event. I left my father's birthday celebration half way through Elwin Soto's championship defense, knowing that Marc Castro was scheduled to fight an eight rounder prior to the main event. Once Castro scored a first round KO, my timing went out the door. I've only gone back to see the first two rounds of the fight. In the first couple rounds Mikey was full of energy and landing at a higher volume in those rounds than in round five through ten that I saw live. I did'n't score the fight round by round but the consensus on my timeline on twitter let me know that most people thought Mikey lost the bout and in turn two judges agreed and one judge had it a draw.
The thing that brings me peace about the loss for Mikey is that he was prepared to cancel the entire show around 30 days prior to fight day. A phone call from Eddie Hearn telling him that he closed a deal for Bam to fight on the undercard for a title fight made him change his mind and go ahead with the show. This leads me to believe that Mikey was not motivated by the opponent, Sandor Martin if he was willing to cancel the entire show. But at the same time it re-instates the overwhelming belief that Robert and Mikey have in Bam to be the next big thing in boxing.
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