FORT WORTH, Texas – When veteran trainer Joel Diaz talks boxing, it’s worth listening. When his title-fight trainer, Jimmy Montoya, has something to say, Diaz himself stops in his tracks.

So it was not too long ago, when Montoya phoned to tell his former understudy Diaz that a talented amateur champion from Amarillo, Texas, wanted Montoya to train him.

“This kid is good, he’s a good looking kid. Has power, ability. He’s a top amateur. He can make you a lot of money.”

Diaz, 52, has long carried a soft spot for Los Angeles’ Montoya given that the trainer cornered him in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1996, for Diaz’s IBF lightweight title fight against native son Phillip Holiday.

Diaz lost by unanimous decision, came back home to the Coachella Valley in California for one more fight and then retired before turning to training and directing the likes of Hall of Fame two-division champion Timothy Bradley and recent former world champions Israil Madrimov and Murodjan Akhmadaliev at his Indio, California, gym.

So Diaz took to looking up and contacting the now-21-year-old fighter Javier Meza.

As an amateur, Meza fought at 154 pounds and defeated one of Diaz’s current prospects for Golden Boy Promotions, Grant Flores.

Diaz determined Meza would be best suited to shed weight and perform at 140lbs as a pro. He’s off to a 4-0 start with two knockouts, and returns home to Texas for the first time as a professional Saturday night when he meets Mexico’s Joshua Briones Garcia, 3-4-1 (2 KOs), in a six-round bout on the undercard of Vergil Ortiz’s WBC interim junior-middleweight title fight versus former title challenger Erickson Lubin.

The oldest of three siblings, Meza won permission from his parents to uproot himself to the California desert.

“I saw the potential, saw all the tools to be a world champion – great style, forward fighter, good defense and great power,” said Diaz, who retained Oscar De La Hoya’s brother, Joel, to manage him.