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November 2000
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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STEP UP FOR DIAZ
Top-rated light-welter finds himself the surprise choice as Mosley's first challenger, but Antonio Diaz believes he has the style for the job. GRAHAM HOUSTON reports |
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MOSLEY without question one of the world's leading boxers
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When Naseem Hamed's scheduled 4 November date on Home Box Office fell out it opened the door for welterweight champion Sugar Shane Mosley. Mosley is ready to get on with his career now that a rematch with Oscar De La Hoya clearly will not be happening any time soon. But when Antonio Diaz was selected to challenge Mosley for the World Boxing Council title it took the fight game by surprise. Not that Diaz isn't a quality fighter - he is. But the Mexican-American from the southern California desert community of Coachella is a light-welterweight and had been trying to get a fight with Kostya Tszyu for the 140lbs (10st) title. To fight at 147lbs (10st 7lbs) for the first time and to do so against one of the world's best fighters might seem just too much, too soon for the 24-year-old Diaz. Talking over the phone from his parents' home at Coachella, Diaz told me that when he watched Mosley fight De La Hoya last June he never dreamed he would be meeting the winner. But opportunity knocked, and Diaz will be travelling to New York to face the undefeated Mosley at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden, the so-called "small room" of the famous arena. Already, Diaz said, he is hearing comments that he cannot possibly win, that Mosley, who has won 35 consecutive fights (32 KOs) will be too fast, too talented. But Diaz, who has won his last 25 fights, says he is going to New York fully expecting to win. His plan, he said, will be to try to make it the sort of fight where Mosley stands and trades punches. He feels that Mosley is more hittable than people think, that Sugar Shane has never been the type to do a lot of moving. "It's a huge step for me," he said, "but we're going to go in there and try to slow him down and win the fight. We've got to get him to come in, and be able to trade punches. "If he starts running around and doing a lot of movement, I'm not going to be after him. I'm gonna be just following him, making him come towards me." He feels that De La Hoya had the beating of Mosley in June but let it slip away. "It was a good fight, but Oscar didn't fight the way he should have fought or the way he usually fights," Diaz said. "I think he could have won that fight, but it wasn't Oscar that night. He was just going straight, without jabbing, without throwing punches, with no movement, just walking straight through and giving Shane Mosley the chance to hit him. "When Oscar was throwing combinations and working the body, Shane started freezing and he wasn't doing what he started doing in the beginning, but then Oscar stopped throwing, he stopped doing everything, and that's what gave Mosley a chance to come back. But you know me, I'm the type of fighter that doesn't stop throwing punches from the beginning to the end." Diaz is a champion of sorts at light-welter, having won the International Boxing Association title and successfully defended it 11 times. He said he'd been trying to get a Kostya Tszyu fight for two years. "I never expected to get a big fight like this, in a different weight class," he said. He felt that Tszyu would have been "no problem", adding: "He's a fighter who likes to trade and he doesn't have a chin. He's been knocked down and knocked out. That would have been a good fight for me." Now he moves up seven pounds for an even bigger challenge. But he expects to be stronger than ever at welterweight. He said he walks around at "160, 165lbs" and that after weighing in at the light-welter limit of 140 he goes back up to around 150lbs. "It's going to be very good [boxing at welterweight] because I make 147 easy," he said. "I'll be eating good, doing everything right." A national Golden Gloves runner-up in 1995, he has not lost as a professional since a majority decision defeat against Juan Lazcano - now a world-rated lightweight - at Las Vegas four years ago. "I lost two fights at the beginning when I wasn't totally focused, I was doing a little bit of running around here and there before fights, with girls, a little partying," he said. "I regret doing all that. If I hadn't, I could be undefeated right now. But after my second loss, I said I would never lose again." He comes from a family of seven, five boys and two girls. His brother Joel Diaz was a world-class lightweight (he fought Philip Holiday for the IBF title in 1996) who is now his co-trainer, along with Diaz's manager, Lee Espinoza. He has two other brothers who box, Julio, a highly promising lightweight, and middleweight Jesus, both of whom spar with him. Diaz has just given one of his best performances, which was when he won a unanimous 10-round decision over the durable veteran Micky Ward on 19 August. This brought his record to 33 wins and two losses, with 22 KOs. He actually has two more knockout wins that are not part of his official record because the bouts were held on native American land in California without commission supervision and are thus deemed "non sanctioned" fights. Against Micky Ward, he said: "I was in top shape and ready for anything, and that's how I'm going to be for this fight." But Micky Ward is not Shane Mosley. Still, Diaz says: "I'll be ready for his speed, for his overhand right that supposedly he has - whatever that comes. "I've been reading all the writers who say I have no chance in the world of beating Shane Mosley, he's fast, he's this, he's that, but I'm gonna go out there and prove a lot of people wrong and show what I can do. "He's beatable. Every fighter out there is beatable. Oscar De La Hoya was supposed to be unbeatable. Julio Cesar Chavez was unbeaten until a guy named Frankie Randall came along and beat him. I feel pretty confident in myself that I'm going to go in there and shock the boxing world." And while this is by far his biggest fight, he has prevailed in difficult fights where he was by no means a big favourite, such as when he knocked out Mexican banger Hector "Canonero" Quiroz in the 12th round and when he won a split decision over the slippery Corey Spinks. The fight Quiroz was a war, and Diaz's left eye was swollen and closing by the later rounds. "It was a pretty tough fight," he said. "He's a tough puncher. People thought I'd lose to him because of power. "Corey Spinks was unbeaten, a slick southpaw, but I beat him, too. I tried not to get frustrated in that fight. I knew I was winning the fight going into the last round. Corey was just running and tapping. I was the aggressor and the one connecting with the better punches." The fight that gave him the most satisfaction, he said, was the one in which he knocked out Mexico's Mauro Lucero, who had just lost a close, tough fight to Cesar Bazan for the WBC lightweight title. "Everybody was saying it would be a tough fight, tough to knock him out, tough to drop him - but I knocked him out in the second round. And against Ivan Robinson, people wondered how I would adjust to his speed. But I gave him no chance to show his speed." The way he wore down and then overpowered Robinson in 11 rounds was typical of Diaz, who says: "I think my strongest points are pressure and an overhand right - but my strongest point is pressuring a fighter, make him throw jabs and catch him with the overhand right and left hook. I work on body punches [in the gym] and there are times I know I need to work on that more. When I'm fighting I just focus on the head and not so much on the body, so with Mosley I'll try to go to the body as much as I can. With Micky Ward, I started using the jab in the beginning but then totally forget about it, so we've been working on the jab, left hook to the body - and a lot of combinations. "With Wilfredo Rivera [when Mosley made his welterweight debut], Mosley didn't do a lot of moving, and he was getting hit - he's a fighter that gets hit a lot. When he starts throwing his combinations, he opens himself too wide. That's a big mistake. I'm just going to go in there, do my job and make sure I come out victorious." But that seems unlikely. Not against someone like Mosley, whose win over De La Hoya elevated him to the top tier in what boxing people call the "pound for pound" rankings. However, Diaz definitely comes to fight, he comes to throw punches, and he is a true Mexican warrior. Don't be surprised if this is not quite the walkover for Mosley that a lot of the critics are predicting it will be. |
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