“Baby Bull” Diaz Looking to Corral Billy “The Kid”

“I know he’s going to come prepared as best he can, but I’m ready too.”-Juan Diaz.

Juan Diaz is without question one of boxing’s brightest lights. The undefeated phenomenon is all set to illuminate the glittering Reliant Center in his hometown of Houston Texas tonight and he spoke to us about how he feels about defending his WBA lightweight belt against the best that Canadian opponent Billy Irwin has to offer. Diaz, 26-0 (12), turned pro at the tender age

of sixteen, fighting his first three matches in Mexico because he was too young to legally compete in the US. Not one of those opponents made it past the first round. Just five days after turning seventeen, Diaz was in the ring again, this time in Houston, battering journeyman Starr Johnson before the referee stopped the contest in the third round. Over the course of the next year, Diaz handily won his next seven bouts. He had successfully negotiated the art of fighting six rounders and two weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday, he was set for his first eight round venture against his first real career test: Ubaldo Hernandez. The twenty-three fight veteran from Mexico City was far from an unbeaten fighter, but by the time he stepped in with young Juan, Hernandez had already participated in three regional title fights and shared the ring with the likes of Angel Vasquez, Hector Velazquez, Carlos Navarro and Edgar Barcenas.

Don’t miss this exclusive interview with WBA world lightweight champion Juan Diaz.

Disaster struck as the teenager was floored in the second and had to dig deep to survive the round before managing to post a very close split decision victory over Hernandez. Diaz had cleared the hurdle, but it was back to the drawing board while Hernandez showed his performance against the Texan was no fluke by going on to win his next three fights, shattering the unbeaten records of two highly regarded prospects, Ebo Elder and Jauquin Gallardo, in the process.

Diaz went the distance against his next five opponents, going ten rounds against the very tough Mike Davis and Peter Nieves, before recording a string of three stoppages against the trio of Roy Delgado, Arthur Cruz and John Bailey. In May of 2003, in his twenty-first fight, Diaz stepped into the ring with a very good fighter from Bakersfield, California by the name of Eleazar Contreras, who had already beaten fellow prospects Courtney Burton, Justo Sencion and Fernando Mena while drawing with Rolando Reyes and losing to Francisco Bojado.

Again, Diaz had to fight through major adversity, getting off the canvas in the sixth en-route to pounding out a unanimous decision over ten hard-fought rounds. The party wasn’t over yet however, as the nineteen-year-old next faced the very awkward wild man Francisco Lorenzo. Hailing from the Dominican Republic where he had won national titles at super-featherweight and lightweight. Lorenzo went at Diaz with everything he had, augmenting his punches from impossible angles that landed anywhere above the Houston native’s knees. Diaz went on to win handily, as Lorenzo was deducted a point for repeated low blows in the fourth. “That was a very difficult fight,” he recalled. “I never knew what he was going to do next.”

After winning the WBC Youth lightweight belt behind an all out high-pressure attack against former world title challenger Joel Perez, Diaz destroyed the comeback of former promising prospect Martin O’Malley behind a vicious body assault that stopped his lanky opponent in the second. Two months shy of his twenty-first birthday, Juan Diaz finally got what he was looking for, a chance to contend for a world title against WBA Lightweight titlist Lakva Sim.

Coming out of his native Mongolia, Sim campaigned in the Far East to win the WBA super featherweight crown in 1999 before losing it in his very next bout to Jong Kwon Baek in South Korea. Sim tried again for the same belt in 2002 only to lose a wide unanimous decision to Yodsanan Sor Nanthachai. After stopping the very tough Luis Villalta in 2003, Sim stopped Miguel Callist in five to take the WBA lightweight crown in April of last year.

Without question Sim would be Diaz’s most difficult assignment to date, with many in the media predicting that the hard as nails Mongolian would prove too much for the twenty year old to surmount. Those worries proved unfounded as Diaz put on a boxing clinic, peppering the thirty-three year old Sim with combination after accurate combination time and time again. Sim had his moments but was never able to mount a sustained offense, as Diaz looked spectacular and swept the cards to win his first world title.

Next up was former three-time world champion Julien Lorcy, who at thirty-two had already had sixty-one bouts under his belt, losing only three, all in title fights. It was a difficult first defense to be sure, but Diaz won his twenty-sixth fight comfortably, out boxing the Frenchman to take a wide unanimous decision on the judge’s cards. “Lorcy was the number one contender and I knew he would have a lot of experience,” said Diaz. “I knew that he had never been knocked out and that it would be hard for me to knock him down or even knock him out so that’s why I prepared myself to go twelve rounds, which it turned out to be.”

Now Diaz is set to defend his hard won crown against another vastly experienced foe, former Commonwealth lightweight strap-holder Billy “The Kid” Irwin, 42-5 (30), of Niagara Falls, Canada. Now thirty-six years of age, Irwin has had an up and down career. His chance at glory came in December of 2000 when he challenged then IBF titlist Paul Spadafora, only to be baffled by the difficult southpaw into a muted losing effort. Things continued on a downward spiral for Irwin as he lost his next outing to the very quick Dorin Spivey. Since that time Irwin has put things right, winning his last eight matches, six inside the distance, and picking up the Canadian lightweight crown.

Diaz has studied his opponent thoroughly and is well aware of what to expect. “My promoter Main Events had sent me a couple of tapes and I’ve studied them,” he said. “Billy Irwin doesn’t throw a lot of punches but he has a lot of power in the punches that he does throw and we’ve been working on slipping those, especially that good left hook that he has. Not standing in front of him is one of the ideas that we’ve come up with and been working on. We want to throw punches and move away because he’s the type of fighter that if you stay and fight with him, it would be to his best advantage. So, what we’re going to do is basically punch and move. I know Irwin is going to be ready because he knows this is probably his last opportunity to win a world title. I know he’s going to come prepared as best he can, but I’m ready too.”

Should Diaz prevail in this contest as is widely expected, a match with IBF titlist Julio Diaz is thought to be on the horizon. Julio Diaz, from Southern California, has already started the war of words, stating through the press that he considers Juan young and inexperienced and is prepared to give the twenty-one year old a boxing lesson. “I’ve been in the game and I’ve seen this type of thing happen a lot of times,” said Juan. “I didn’t respond to any of Julio Diaz’s comments but what I did was tell my manager that I would like to fight him. I don’t want to say anything negative. We’re both boxers and we’re going to prove who’s the better fighter when we do fight, so I told them to make the fight. They tried to make the fight but for some reason he didn’t accept. I don’t like to go around talking trash and it doesn’t affect me when people talk trash. If another champion challenges me, that’s better for me because I want to unify the division and it’s much easier if they call me out then if we go around making proposals to them.”

As a world champion, Juan Diaz is living a dream come true and the gritty and determined young man isn’t about to let anything change that anytime soon. “Being the champion it is everything I thought it would be,” he said. “People recognize me now as Juan Diaz the champ when before I was just Juan Diaz. It’s everything I expected it to be and it’s a great feeling. It’s great to be champ. I feel very grateful to be where I am today and I’d just like to invite all the Houston fans to the fight and thank them for all the support throughout the years. I’m grateful to everyone else in the US who’s been following my career, I’d like to thank them for all the support, too and I don’t ever want to let them down.”

Curtis McCormick can be reached at thomaspointrd@aol.com