Joseph Diaz Expects ‘Epic’ HBO Fight Against Horacio Garcia

By Keith Idec

Joseph Diaz Jr. wants fans at The Forum and HBO viewers to walk away Saturday night with a positive impression of a young fighter, too.

As much as Diaz hopes 51-year-old Bernard Hopkins wins his farewell fight against Joe Smith Jr., Diaz is even more anxious about his own opportunity on the televised portion of the undercard. HBO will showcase Diaz (22-0, 13 KOs) in its co-feature from Inglewood, California, a 10-round featherweight fight against Mexico’s Horacio Garcia (30-1-1, 22 KOs) for the NABF 126-pound championship.

The 24-year-old Diaz, a southpaw from South El Monte, California, will box before many of his hometown fans from the Los Angeles area. The 2012 American Olympian still felt relaxed after weighing in Friday afternoon at the featherweight limit of 126 pounds.

“No pressure at all,” Diaz said. “I’ve just gotta go out there and do what I do best. I’ve had a tremendous training camp. I trained very hard. I had an eight-week training camp. It’s Bernard Hopkins’ last fight, so I wanna make it special for him and give all the fight fans that are tuning in on HBO, and live at The Forum, an amazing fight. This co-main event is gonna be an epic fight.”

Oscar De La Hoya, Diaz’s promoter, presented him with a trophy after Friday’s weigh-in on behalf of the WBC. The Mexico City-based sanctioning organization named Diaz its “Prospect of the Year” during its annual convention this week in Hollywood, Florida.

“It’s a great feeling,” Diaz said regarding winning the award. “It’s an accomplishment for me and I’m gonna show everybody tomorrow night why I’m the prospect of this year.”

The upset-minded, 26-year-old Garcia, of Guadalajara, Mexico, is 1-1-1 in his last three fights.

The lone loss of his career came against former WBC world bantamweight and WBC world featherweight champion Hozumi Hasegawa. Garcia lost a unanimous decision to Hasegawa (36-5, 16 KOs) in a 10-rounder that took place 19 months ago in Kobe, Japan, Hasegawa’s hometown.

“I’m prepared to win,” Garcia said. “I came to win. And whether he’s 3, 2 or No. 1, we’re gonna beat him.”

In addition to the Hopkins-Smith and Diaz-Garcia fights, HBO will televise a cruiserweight title fight Saturday night as part of its “World Championship Boxing” tripleheader (10 p.m. ET/PT). Unbeaten Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk (10-0, 9 KOs) is scheduled to defend his WBO world cruiserweight title against South Africa’s Thabiso Mchunu (17-2, 11 KOs) in that fight, scheduled for 12 rounds.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.