By Vitali Shaposhnikov: Nonito Donaire (29-1-0) and Mikey Garcia (28-0-0) not only share a friendship, but also a trainer, Robert Garcia. Both are known to be great fighters, and both try to make the fights worth the while for the fans. In a recent interview , Garcia mentioned that he would favor a fight against Donaire if their paths happened to cross sometime in the future.
“If my brother is working with him, I don’t think my brother would want that fight, being that we are both my brother’s fighters. But if it something were we are talking about, if it’s a fight that people want to see and the promoter wants to put on, my brother would most likely tell Donaire to get another trainer. I don’t think my brother is going to have us fight each other while he is still fighting Donaire,” declared Garcia.
Being a trainer for both, Robert would have to let one of his fighters go with a different trainer if they ever had to fight. Donaire and Robert Garcia are very close, and have been unbelievably successful together. I suppose that for Donaire, having Robert in his corner would be a must, thus fighting Garcia is probably not going to be a part of his career.
“And if he decides to get another trainer and if he wants the fight and if I’m there still in the division and people want to see the fight, yes, we’ll do the fight. That’s not any problem,” continued Garcia.
Looks to me, as though Garcia would really like this fight to happen, for obvious reasons and benefits. Beating Donaire would boost anyone’s career to new heights, and for Mikey it would be a very clever way to go. Robert knows Donaire inside out, and would be fully capable of explaining Nonito’s drawbacks and problems in the ring to Mikey.
In theory, this would be the case, but would Robert Garcia actually do this? Would he lead Mikey to a victory against his top pupil? I think the answer is no. This is exactly why their fight, despite sounding very intriguing, is unlikely to ever come to fruition.
But suppose it did end up coming together and Robert end up coaching Mikey through this event, who do you think Donaire would end up asking to be his trainer? And who would you pick to win knowing that Donaire’s head coach is in the opposite corner?