Friday, March 29, 2024  |

News

R. Garcia on an Ortiz-Maidana fight, the Donaire-Conte relationship

Fighters Network
19
May

alt

Trainer Robert Garcia was intrigued on two fronts by the recent developments involving  Andre Berto’s  positive drug test for the banned substance norandrosterone, which forced Berto out of his rematch with Victor Ortiz that was scheduled for June 23.

On the one hand, Berto has worked with former BALCO founder Victor Conte, who is also the nutritionst for Nonito Donaire, whom Garcia trains.

In addition, Garcia trains Marcos Maidana, a man who has been considered as a replacement to face Ortiz. But Ortiz, loser by sixth-round knockout of a thriller against Maidana in in June of 2009,  is trained by Garcia’s older brother Danny Garcia.



Although Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer has already all-but dismissed a matchup between Ortiz and Maidana, Robert Garcia said that such a bout would cause potentially devastating issues for the families of the Garcia brothers, who have been involved in an ongoing, jealousy-laced blood feud that has caused deep wounds within their immediate family and beyond.

Conte served a prison stint for his work with illegal performance-enhancing drugs in numerous professional sports, and built a four-year career out of helping athletes to circumvent Olympic-style drug testing policies until BALCO was raided in 2003.

Since exiting prison, however, Conte says he has become legit. Since 1988, Conte has run SNAC, an acronym for Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning, which is an organization that supplies legal sports nutrition products and supplements.

In this interview with RingTV.com, Garcia addressed those two situations.

Robert Garcia on whether he’s concerned about the Donaire-Conte relationship:

“I am not concerned about that at all. I know Victor Conte. I know Nonito very well. He’s one of the most honest people in the sport. He would never do anything illegal to try to win the fight.

“He’s so talented and he’s up there as one of the best fighters, pound-for-pound. He doesn’t need that illegal stuff. He would be ashamed of himself if he ever tried to use something like that.”

On Conte’s character:

“I know Conte really good too. I know that he’s a great person. I was surprised by what happened with Berto, but I haven’t talked to nobody about this.

“I truly believe that Conte’s a person who came back and who is trying to clean up the sport. I have no idea how this situation happened.

“I know that everybody might think that it’s Conte. But if you’re asking me, I would say that he’s the last person that’s going to try to do something illegal.”

On the potential for being in the opposite corner from his brother, Danny Garcia:

“Me, personally, I wouldn’t even want the fight. It’s a fight that’s going to hurt not only me, as a brother, but especially my mom and my dad, you know?

“Seeing two brothers go against each other would really hurt my mom and my pop. I know that they [Ortiz’s camp] might want it, and that they’ve already asked us. 

“But I don’t care about that fight. I don’t want to hurt my mom, especially. My mom has been through a lot between all of the things that have gone on in the family with my brother and myself and all of the family.

“So my mom has been really hurt, and it would really kill her to have to see her two sons going against each other, so I would never really want it.

“Maidana does have a manager and he does have a promoter and I’m the new guy on the team, so if they made that decision, I would have to do it. But in reality, I would rather not.”


 

Photo by Chris Farina, Top Rank Inc.

Lem Satterfield can be reached at [email protected]

SIGN UP TO GET RING NEWS ALERTS