By Miguel Rivera
Joseph Diaz has already secured his shot at the WBC featherweight championship, and he hopes the World Boxing Council (WBC) will ensure that their champion, Gary Russell Jr., will fight him by this coming May.
In fact, Russell Jr. should be facing Diaz in the upcoming months but he decided to take an interim-fight, according to the WBC. 'JoJo' will do the same when he faces former world champion Victor Terrazas (38-4-2, 21 KOs) on February 22 at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio.
Diaz (25-0, 13 KOs), featherweight champion of the North American Boxing Organization, will be fighting for the first time in 2018.
Last year, he fought twice and this year he intends to enter the ring at least four times.
"I'm very young, I'm 25 years old, I can still fight a lot. I want this fight to keep me active," said Díaz to Eduard Cauich.
"Gary Russell Jr. is slow to finalize our fight. I'm sure he'll wait until May to fight me. I'm taking a big risk, but I'm not taking this opponent lightly, I'm very focused and determined."
Russell has fought only once in each in the last three years. Diaz believes that factor will be a very important advantage for him.
"We thought we were going to have our title fight in February or March but he never accepted. He's going to have one more fight, I'm almost sure he's going to fight in March," Diaz said.
"He's getting older. He's not very active and I think it will pay dividends. He will not be the same fighter that he was before. He's very inactive. I want to beat Russell and then unify the titles. I want to demonstrate things in my division. I hope that in 2019 I will become the undisputed champion and then I want to move up the division."