"They just reached out to me and said that they were fighting Mikey Garcia and they were wondering if I would be interested in training JuanMa. Honestly, it's a very difficult decision," stated world-class Strength & Conditioning coach Alex Ariza, who spoke about the possibility of helping former featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez prepare for his upcoming June 15 showdown with current WBO featherweight champion Mikey Garcia. Having worked with Mikey and the Garcia family in the past, Ariza admits it's a tough decision for him to make.
"I'm friends with obviously those guys and I helped Mikey a little bit in the last camp," Ariza stated when FightHype.com reached out to him in Mexico. "I'm friends with Robert Garcia. I mean, we don't have each other over for dinner or noting like that, but we're cordial, we're professional, and knowing that I have helped Mikey in the past, I just wanted to give him a heads up, you know, and say, 'Hey, this is where it's at.'" Perhaps more importantly, however, is that it's a decision that is totally dependent upon the next move of former middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., one of Ariza's top clients.
"It's contingent upon what's going on with Julio and his next fight. If Julio doesn't know what's going on with the next opponent in the next couple days, he plans on going back on vacation again," he explained, which suggest that maybe Chavez Jr. won't be facing middleweight contender Bryan Vera on August 3. "He's thinking about taking more time off until maybe possibly September, so I'm just waiting for Julio to make a decision, and if that's the case, it's very likely I'll be taking off to Puerto Rico."
BE SURE TO CHECK BACK SOON FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH ALEX ARIZA
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