Mayweather’s Hands Stay Wrapped in Trust By GREG BISHOP LAS VEGAS — On his business card, Rafael Garcia lists trainer-consultant-cutman as his occupation. But his specialty, his artistry, lies in his hands. Garcia and the welterweight Floyd Mayweather Jr. hold that in common, although they employ their magic hands in different but related ways. Mayweather’s have delivered 40 victories against no losses. Garcia’s saved Mayweather’s career. For all boxers, but Mayweather especially, hands hold the ultimate importance. Pain there helped force Mayweather into one sabbatical already, and had Garcia not joined his swollen entourage, Mayweather might have retired, hands down, for good. Instead, he will fight Shane Mosley on Saturday here at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, with Garcia in his corner and hands he swears feel as fresh as the first day he laced on boxing gloves. “Those are very important hands,” Garcia said. “In those hands, there are millions of dollars. Millions and millions of dollars. I have to take care of that.” Garcia spoke from inside the supply closet at Mayweather’s gym this week, a humble setting befitting an unassuming hand specialist with more than six decades of experience and some 35 world champions on his résumé. None of this was handed to him. Garcia grew up in Puebla, Mexico, and started boxing at age 15, and even then, he studied the art he later mastered. Now 81, Garcia has wrapped hands all over the United States, as well as Africa, Germany, England, China, Korea and his native Mexico. His list of champions includes Roberto Duran, nicknamed the Hands of Stone, Alexis Arguello, Wilfredo Gomez and Chad Dawson. Garcia never learned another business. Asked to describe his hobbies outside boxing, he answered none. For this reason, for Garcia’s methods and expertise, Mayweather repeatedly labeled his cutman the best in the business this week. After thousands of wraps, perhaps hundreds of thousands, Garcia claimed a 100 percent success rate. “I never, never, never had any trouble,” he said. “Nobody has asked me to redo a wrap. Ever.” Shortly after Mayweather arrived at his gym for a recent training session, he sat on a folding chair, extended his right wrist over another chair and motioned for Garcia to begin. Garcia massaged Mayweather from fingers to shoulders, slowly, carefully, using oil brought from Mexico to soften the ligaments and tendons and increase blood flow. The gym was filled with people, but Mayweather and Garcia conducted this ritual as if alone. Garcia wrapped Mayweather’s hands with gauze and tape, each movement performed with the precision of a surgeon. Garcia could wrap both hands in a matter of minutes, he said, but prefers to take his time. Their process usually lasts for 25 minutes, sometimes longer, right hand first, then left. “I don’t rush it,” Garcia said. “I like to do them perfect, in the right way, the right moment. I have a feel for it.” There was an obvious tenderness between the men, despite their differences. Mayweather briefly dropped the cocky persona he made famous. Garcia wiped sweat off the boxer’s brow, called him Champ and bobbed his head along with Mayweather to the hip-hop streaming from the speakers. Nearly 50 years separate the two in age, but they have more in common than most might think. Both have spent their lives in boxing, surrounded by champions. Both appreciate boxing’s beauty and understand the subtle importance provided by properly wrapped hands. “For him to be his age, it’s unbelievable,” Mayweather said. “He still gets around like he’s 30 years old. I mean, he still drives. He don’t wear glasses. He talks about sexy ladies.” Earlier in Mayweather’s career, he fought with smaller gloves, and that, according to his trainer and uncle, Roger Mayweather, led to bruised and brittle hands. Garcia auditioned for the role of hand specialist in late 2000, in front of a doctor and Mayweather’s advisers in Los Angeles. He first worked Mayweather’s corner for a fight against Diego Corrales early the next year, and not immediately, but over years, Mayweather said, Garcia banished the pain that had plagued him. The fixes were more nuanced than earth-shattering: Garcia said he wrapped Mayweather’s hands more loosely, augmenting technique with his special oil. The Nevada boxing commission even summoned Garcia to show his process to 20 of its inspectors. That did not stop rumors from spreading that Mayweather shot painkillers into his hands, specifically Xylocaine, a substance legal only in Nevada and only under a doctor’s supervision. “I’m from the hood,” Naazim Richardson, Mosley’s trainer, said on a recent conference call. “The only ’caine I want to hear is Big Daddy Kane.” Mayweather and his adviser Leonard Ellerbe both vehemently denied that Mayweather had ever injected anything into his hands, insisting that jealous opponents had attempted to discredit Mayweather’s accomplishments. Instead, they point to Garcia, the man Mayweather refers to as Granddaddy, as the solution. Garcia almost died once, his heart stopping before doctors revived him, bringing him back to life. According to Mayweather, Garcia did the same for his hands and, by extension, his career. Thus the two head into this Mosley fight not so much brothers in arms, but brothers in hands. Magic hands, at that. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/sports/01fight.html
“I’m from the hood,” Naazim Richardson, Mosley’s trainer, said on a recent conference call. “The only ’caine I want to hear is Big Daddy Kane. LMAO
Garcia and Miguel Diaz are just incredible characters and cornermen. I personally like Nazim talkin but also Peterson's trainer, Kevin Cunnighman with Devon Alexander and Tim Bradley's.
