By Ryan Maquiñana
Timothy Bradley is currently walking around at 162 pounds—15 over the limit for his June 9 showdown with Manny Pacquiao, but right on track if you ask Joel Diaz, his esteemed trainer.
“We will bring Bradley down slowly but surely,” Diaz said. “I want him at 155 [pounds] for the majority of camp, and then have him right on the dot at 147 by the weigh-in.”
Diaz pointed to another of his fighters, Vicente Escobedo, to illustrate an example of his techniques.
“We have a nutrition plan that works,” Diaz added. “I’ve been working on it for years, and now I’ve got it down. Escobedo has been fighting at 135 for his whole career, and look at him now. He had no problems making 130 easy, and he doesn’t even have problems eating, either.”
Escobedo scored a spectacular first-round stoppage of Lonnie Smith Saturday, having comfortably weighed in at 129 pounds the day before. Diaz vowed that Bradley, who once unified belts at junior welterweight, would look and feel his best for the biggest fight of his life.
“Timothy’s a big guy,” he said. “If you remember, he fought at 152 as an amateur. The key was slowly bringing him down to 140 once he got to the pros. There was actually one fight when he came in at around 138 or 138 and a half. That’s how easy it became. Now we’ve got him where we want him to be. You’re going to see him in the best shape and he’ll be strong at 147 for Pacquiao.”
Team Bradley plans to wait until holding camp in late March in order to avoid overtraining.
“I don’t want to start him too soon because Bradley works extremely hard,” Diaz said. “When I give him the amount of time for training camp, usually the last week of training, I can see…he’s a little fatigued, and even though this is the biggest fight of our career, it could work against us by trying to start early.”
Diaz also touched on how he plans to use different sparring partners with separate Pacquiao-esque traits in order for the parts to add up to a whole, so to speak.
“I know getting somebody similar to Manny Pacquiao is impossible. There’s no fighter out there like Manny Pacquiao, but we’re going to try to get a happy medium, somebody that can give us speed, footwork, and a little power.”
Ryan Maquiñana writes a weekly column for Comcast SportsNet Bay Area (CSNBayArea.com). He’s also a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and Ring Magazine’s Ratings Panel. E-mail him at rmaquinana@gmail.com, check out his blog at norcalboxing.net or follow him on Twitter: @RMaq28.