The big news came out that Team Ortiz will no longer be training with Robert Garcia in Riverside, CA. Vergil spent the first nine fights of his professional career with Antonio and Joel Diaz in Indio, CA, the next nine with Robert Garcia and Team RGBA in Riverside. In a conversation with Vergil Sr. he expressed that when they were considering who to help them turn Little Vergil pro, a name he considered was Jose Benavidez Sr. Benavidez Sr. is in Phoenix, AZ this weekend getting both his sons ready for their bouts at the Footprint Center on Showtime.
Earlier this week Team Ortiz posted some pictures on their social media showing them at Manny Robles gym in Los Angeles. Robles most recently had a huge win with helping Andy Ruiz become the first Mexican American Heavyweight champion of the world in a win over Anthony Joshua. Robles is also known for his work with WBC Featherweight champion Oscar Valdez and dozens of other world class athletes.
In a video posted by Robert Garcia and his son, Pita, they expressed that Team Ortiz was not happy with the decision for Robert to assist Joshua Franco’s championship bout on August 14th in Tulsa Oklahoma opposed to being in Little Vergil’s bout versus Egis Kavaliauskas in Frisco, Texas. In addition more reasons given by Team Ortiz were that sparring was a problem and others not detailed in the video. Robert Garcia is known for having one of the busiest boxing gyms in California and possibly the country. Without more details of what exactly the problem was with sparring, we can only speculate that either the quantity or quality of sparring was the problem. Via a video put out by Elie Seckbach of EsNews, Robert shared that many of his in-house fighters would show up late to train or not show up at all when they were notified that they were lined up to share the ring with Little Vergil that day. It’s not hard to see that Little Vergil is light years more advanced than many fighters his age. For example his counter part Jaron Boots Ennis, up to the record of 18-0 fought opponents with all upside down records. Jose Ramirez once told Robert Garcia that he wanted Little Vergil rounds one through four when he was most fresh. With different schedules sometimes fighters are not in the same place in their training camps and not prepared to go the rounds that a fighter or trainer might ask of them. I wonder if that was the case with the sparring issue. Did Little Vergil exhaust all of Robert’s in-house fighters? There were signs that Robert and Team Ortiz did bring in some outside sparring partners during the training camp for Kavaliauskas but was it enough?
I will most likely attend the Jaime Munguia fight tonight in Anaheim, CA and if Team Ortiz is in attendance then that would be a great question to pose. There’s hundreds of trainers out there qualified to train Little Vergil but how many are a good fit. How many trainers are willing to take in the team and the trainers that have been with the fighter since the amateurs. In this case Vergil Ortiz Sr. who trained his son since the age of five years old and also Hector Beltran Sr. a ex fighter that has been helping Vergil Sr. with his son since Vergil Jr.’s early teens.
Where does Team Ortiz go from here? Does he seek out David Benavidez Sr., Eddy Reynoso, Virgil Hunter, Freddie Roach, Teddy Atlas, Joe Goosen, Papachenko, Abel Sanchez, the list goes on and on. What trainer can take Little Vergil to the next level because he’s proven to be at the cusp of a world championship belt. But is that enough, or is the goal to be Unified, Undisputed, a mutli-division champion and or the face of boxing. The skies the limit with Vergil because he’s been training like an adult at a pace some parents would call child support services on. He pushes his body to extremes most people are not willing to sacrifice. Only time will tell where the team lands.
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