Blueprint for success: Retired Glendale boxer George Garcia building Wittmann gym to serve community
By Myles Aaron Dunson ·
Blueprint for success: Retired Glendale boxer George Garcia building Wittmann gym to serve community
by Myles Aaron Dunson, Cronkite News
November 9, 2026
LAS VEGAS – The air is thick with heat and sweat. Reggaeton, Latin pop and rap songs pause every two to three minutes as the workout bell rings. Speed bags ricochet off their holders under fervent attack, and pictures of everyone from child boxers holding trophies to Canelo Álvarez and Manny Pacquiao adorn every inch of the walls.
Those are the smells, sounds and sights that greet everyone who walks into the Las Vegas Fight Club boxing gym.
From an outside point of view, LVFC could seem like a run-of-the-mill gym for people to get in shape or hone their craft, but for George Garcia it's the blueprint for something closer to home.
Garcia is building a boxing gym in Wittmann, Arizona, a small unincorporated rural community about midway between Surprise and Wickenburg northwest of Phoenix. It’s also part of a bigger plan – Garcia is building it primarily to train his son, WBC Latino and WBA Intercontinental Champion Elijah Garcia, without driving all the way to Las Vegas.
But he also believes it will serve the tiny Wittmann community and others in the state.
Wittmann is a quiet desert town with a population of around 630 people about an hour drive from central Phoenix. It may not seem like the spot for a world-class gym, but George said that more businesses are cropping up.
“We’re in production now to lay down the cement,” he said. “It's a 55-by-50 (feet) slab. The inside of the building is going to be 2,000 square feet, and then we’re going to have an awning where I’ll have a grass portion that’s going to be 15-by-50 feet long. We’ll have our strength-and-conditioning stuff out there.”
Elijah and his younger brother, Elexus, are the primary reason that George is building the gym, and he plans on naming it after his two eldest boys, “EG Boxing Gym.” As a byproduct of that, the Garcias say they can also fill a hole in the community that they see as underserved.
“I know I have knowledge that can help other people,” George said. “I figured there's a lot of local fighters that fight in Arizona on smaller cards. A lot of fighters, a lot of good coaches. I just know they don't have as much experience as me.”
George was 30-16-1 across his professional and amateur boxing career, according to boxrec.com, and he has coached his son to an 18-win, 14-knockout, two-loss professional record.
“I offer my services to a lot of fighters for free,” George said. “The problem is a lot of coaches say, ‘Oh, I got it.’ Or they think they know how to do it, which I know they don’t because they’re not prepared. It’s not a knock on them, it’s just all these coaches and teams don’t want to let somebody else on their team because you’re only allowed three people in a corner.”
George’s experience as a boxer allowed his family to do well for themselves, as the three Garcia brothers are all what deemed well-adjusted young men, but Elijah said he can see how boxing can improve the lives of people who are not in the same position as him.
“Those other kids in different parts of the country…they grow up in bad neighborhoods,” Elijah said. “When you’re in an environment like that, you walk into a boxing ring, a boxing gym, conditioning and discipline. There might be discipline at the gym that isn’t at home.”
LVFC owner Jayson Gallegos is a prime example.
“It changed (my) lifestyle,” Gallegos said. “I grew up bad, no direction. I just wanted to change, you know, for the kids and my family. Boxing is that discipline. It changes you. It’s a lifestyle. This is good for the kids, keeps them off the streets and everything. You just become a different person.”
The gym doesn’t just benefit kids who are off the straight and narrow; it also helps people with neurodevelopmental conditions. Elijah has what is called Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, but he said that the gym allows him to hone in on the task at hand.
“Boxing kind of locks me in,” Elijah said. “I’m able to focus and patrol on the stuff I need because otherwise when I’m at home…that’s why I need (training) camp.”
The gym’s groundwork isn’t the only thing George has laid. He also has the daily plan ready.
“We’re going to try and help the community,” George said. “We’re going to be open in the morning because I know people like to go train in the morning. We’ll have set hours, and then we’ll be open midday for some boxers, and then again in the afternoon. It’ll kind of be an open gym.”
Even with all the preparation George has put into his plan, the business venture may not be as cut-and-dried as he hopes it to be, according to the LVFC owner.
“The boxing business is like the ocean,” Gallegos said. “It comes in waves. You have to love it.”
George isn’t wading in timidly; he plans to be a lighthouse for any fighter who needs the Garcias' services.
“It’s not just local fighters,” George said. “I’m talking about fighters coming from all over the country. If you come train with Eli, spar with him, I could train them, or just even be an extra hand in the corner.”
This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Originally published by Cronkite News Sports
