By Steve Kim
As Robert Garcia prepares Brandon Rios for his November 7th HBO televised bout against Tim Bradley, he understands that much of the focus will be on Bradley's new trainer, Teddy Atlas, who recently replaced Joel Diaz in the corner.
But he doesn't believe Atlas will have much of an impact.
"Honestly, at this stage of Bradley's career I don't think he does anything good or bad," Garcia said bluntly, last week at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, where the press conference to formally announce this fight was held.
"I think Bradley is what he is. Bradley could've trained with his wife as a trainer, the dad, honestly, it's the truth. Bradley's always going to be in great shape, we know that.
"He's always in great shape - it could be his wife, the brother, the dad - whoever it is and he'd be the same Bradley."
Meanwhile Garcia think that he's got the vintage 'Bam Bam' back. In late January, Rios demolished Mike Alvarado in their rubber match.
"Just those three rounds we had, I think it showed a little bit of the Brandon that was earlier in his career and we're going to have in this fight. Brandon's motivated."
Garcia says for a spell, Rios got complacent.
"For like four fights, (Richard) Abril, Alvarado II, (Manny) Pacquiao and Diego Chaves, Brandon had already had money and didn't really care about training, didn't really care about his diet until the last week before the fight. So he wasn't the Brandon that people like to see. Now, since he knew it was do-or-die, if you lose against Alvarado in the third fight - you're done. I would've told him to retire.
"He trained like never before and came back and had a great performance. He's doing the same thing in this fight. So I think we're going to be in as good a shape as he was for Alvarado III or better."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.
