RARE AS THEY ARE BOXING HAS ETHICS!
San Francisco, CA– Even boxing, dubbed by the “red light district of sports,” has a creed, an obligation. If it were verbal the mantra would be that a boxer makes the contracted weight. Before you say that I can’t address such a subject with conviction, I made the weight 52 times, from 88 to 147 lbs.
STARVED, DRAINED, NO MATTER, YOU MADE WEIGHT!
Although there were many an occasion when I struggled, starved, got light headed, wanted to give up, but I never did and always made the stipulated mark on the scale. With the exception of welterweight (147), from the beginning and 88 lbs. to my snagging four Golden Glove titles at 139 (then jr. welterweight) I had to parse myself.
TRAINER ROBERT GARCIA SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE!
The intent of the prior verbiage put forth is not to blow my own horn, but rather to lay a foundation for the gyst of this piece, that being trainer Robert Garcia is making a mockery of fighters making weight. Need I remind you that it is a trainer’s responsibility to insure he delivers a well conditioned and prepared athlete to the scale at weight.
DURAN PAID FOR WEIGHTY ISSUES
Having trained with the king of “gaining and losing” weight, Roberto Duran, who always made it even if it meant his losing 25 lbs. in less than two weeks. That being said, Mikey Garcia NOT making weight for the Saturday encounter with Juan Manuel Lopez is in my mind an indictment of the ethics of trainer Robert Garcia, or lack thereof.
HISTORY SAYS GARCIA FIGHTERS LACK DISCIPLINE!
In 2011, a Garcia client, Brandon Rios failed to make the contracted weight of 135 lbs. for a WBA 135 lb. encounter with John Murray. Rios, slated to meet Manny Pacquiao in November in Macau, won here with a TKO 11. This same Brandon Rios, again trained by Robert Garcia doesn’t make weight one year later for another WBA sanctioned 135 lb. affair with Richard Abril. The end result with Rios getting the nod was one of the worst calls (scoring wise) in recent boxing annals.
PATTERN UNFAIR TO FIGHTERS & FANS ALIKE!
If you couple those two violations of the boxing ” creed” with the fact that Robert Garcia’s brother Mikey Garcia, the reigning WBO 126 lb. titleholder coming in at 128, then what you have here is a pattern of a trainer skirting the rules. This adds further credence to my claim that Robert Garcia is throwing dung in the face of the sport and those who sign to face his fighters.
GARCIA’S DISRESPECT FOR GAME & FANS
Having been at this probably longer you have been alive, I can tell you that in the last 30 years, that’s three decades, I cannot remember ANY trainer having had fighters NOT make weight on three seperate occassions. In closing, the capper on this issue is that Robert Garcia actually “flipped off” the system of making weight when Rios didn’t make the cut for Abril, as he left and came back heavier than he was an hour earlier.
VIDEOTAPE OF GARCIA ADMISSION
With the smile of Robert Garcia still etched in my mind when questioned about Rios coming back heavier rather than lighter, what was obvious is that the Oxnard, CA resident was making light of he and his client skirting, if not breaking the creed of combat sports in that we make the weight! Don’t fine the fighter here, sanction the trainer!
Pedro Fernandez