By Robert Morales
Robert Garcia has become one of the top trainers in the game. He will be in Nonito Donaire's corner Saturday, when the Filipino star faces Toshiaki Nishioka - as well as Brandon Rios' when he takes on Mike Alvarado in a junior welterweight showdown. He believes that as long as Amir Khan was going to make a change, Virgil Hunter was a good choice for a new trainer. Khan recently parted ways with Freddie Roach.
"Virgil's a great trainer," Garcia said. "He's done a great job with [Andre] Ward, so why wouldn't he be the right person? I think he's a very talented trainer, so I think Amir Khan made the right decision."
That doesn't mean Garcia believes that Roach is to blame for Khan's TKO loss to Danny Garcia.
"Well, you know, after a fighter starts losing and after fighters are not looking the way they normally do, the first person they go after is the trainer," Garcia said. "Nobody was saying that before. Freddie Roach has done a great job with Manny Pacquiao and just that itself tells you that he's a great trainer.
"He did a great job with Amir Khan, too. But you get into tougher fights, you get into tougher opponents, you lose one or two and the first person they go after is the trainer. That's just the way it is."
Khan has lost two in a row - to Lamont Peterson last December, and Garcia in July.
