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By MB.com
Julio Diaz knows he’s wearing the black hat tonight. Despite being one of the game’s class acts, a no nonsense fighter who believes in letting his fists do the talking, when he steps into the ring against Ricky Quiles in Hollywood, Florida (PPV 9pm ET), he’ll be the bad guy, the one trying to keep the hard luck Quiles from his dream of winning a world title.
And Diaz, who didn’t exactly strut up a rose-strewn pathway to this shot at the interim IBF lightweight crown (up for grabs due to injuries suffered by champion Jesus Chavez), is getting a little miffed at constantly hearing about Quiles 17-year odyssey to his first stab at a world title belt.
“I know his story is sad and they keep mentioning that this is his last shot, that he never had this or never had that,” Diaz told MaxBoxing after Tuesday’s final press conference. “I come a family of five fighters, and I could tell you many stories of mine that will make you cry, but every fight’s different. Just because it’s your last chance, that doesn’t mean God’s gonna help you to win. If that was the case, then I would win in the first round. If somebody’s got a sad story in boxing, it’s the Diaz family. And I’ve got a million stories. So I don’t feel bad and I know that there’s nothing boxing owes this guy. God has helped him more than enough with how many wins he has.”
One of seven children, Diaz – whose brothers Joel and Antonio fought for world titles – knows about coming up the hard way, about fighting for everything you’ve got and it still not being nearly enough. Even when he blazed his way up the ranks in 2000-01 under the Top Rank banner, earning USA Today’s Prospect of the Year award in 2000, he wasn’t the top priority for his promoter – that role went to Oscar De La Hoya.
“We’re coming from a little place that nobody even knows how to pronounce,” laughed the native of Michoacan, Mexico, who has lived much of his life in Coachella, California. “So trying to get the world to turn around and look at us was the main difficulty. We’re here on our own with nobody’s help, with nobody’s pull, without being overrated. We earned our shots, the way it should be. We didn’t get things handed to us, we weren’t protected, we ain’t no Juan Diaz or anything like that. We fight to win, whether he’s undefeated, whether it’s in his hometown or backyard – look at this, I’m getting another title shot in this guy’s hometown. I know what I’m walking into. This guy’s a flashy fighter who throws a dozen punches that don’t do any damage. But with those little flurries, how do you think the crowd will be making noise here? So that’s gonna be winning him the rounds. That’s all he has to do – throw little combinations that look nice for the crowd.”
You get the impression that Diaz has grown bitter with the sport, at least the politics of it, where sometimes being a good fighter isn’t enough to get media attention or a television date. But at 26 and approaching his prime, Diaz has embraced the hard times because it’s making him a harder fighter once the bell rings.
“Definitely, because when push comes to shove, we’re not spoiled,” he said. “We’re made hard and we were raised like that, so we’ve never been babied. When we got dropped, when it gets tough, we’re not surprised because we’ve been through it. That’s the problem with these fighters that are always babied. See, like (unbeaten WBA champion) Juan Diaz (no relation), the only time he’s been down he started crying in the ring and he couldn’t even do his interview. He’s a kid who got scared because he never felt that before, so he didn’t know how react. You can’t blame him, but people spoil you and when it gets tough you don’t know what to do because you’ve never been in that situation.”
For Diaz, the ‘Baby Bull’ that shares his last name is an easy target because of the push given to him by promoter Main Events and manager Shelly Finkel that saw him featured on Showtime, HBO, NBC, and ESPN over the course of his career. The fact that Juan Diaz is a college student in addition to a world champion makes his story even more attractive to the press. Julio Diaz hasn’t had that type of push. So if he wins tonight, is Juan Diaz first on his hit list?
“He’s been on my hit list but I don’t like to pursue that much because I don’t want to feel like I’m asking him for a fight,” said Diaz (32-3, 24 KOs). “For me, he’s not even on my level like that to give him that kind of position where I’m asking for a shot. I’ve been making my better paydays around him and I’ve been making a name for myself aside from him, so I never really needed him.”
The name Diaz has been making for himself is as one of the top 135-pounders in the world. Once a straight-ahead ****er, Diaz reinvented himself a bit after a controversial decision loss to Angel Manfredy in 2001 and a shocking TKO loss to Juan Valenzuela in 2002, and showed that he could box as well as **** in his IBF title eliminaton win against Courtney Burton in 2004.
Next would be the title shot he had waited for for years in May of 2004 against rugged Mexican Javier Jauregui. It had been a five year trek to get to the San Diego Sports Arena that night, one that many thought was three years late. It was enough pressure to crush a fighter, and Diaz knows that Quiles is feeling that pressure right about now.
“That’s gonna be one of my biggest advantages,” said Diaz. “Him coming in like that, so desperate, and this being his last shot and him wanting it so much, that’s what’s gonna defeat him. Sometimes you want something so bad, you don’t perform the way you should because you’re so anxious. And that will be his biggest mistake.”
Diaz beat Jauregui that night via a majority decision that was more in tune with the judges who scored it 118-110 than the one that had it even, and he did it by refusing to let the moment overtake him.
“You’ve got to cruise your way right through it, be patient, and really want it from your heart,” said Diaz. “This is Quiles’ first title shot and he’s taking it like it’s the last one. Who knows what’s gonna happen. When I got my shot, I took advantage of it, and even though it didn’t go the way I planned, I had a good state of mind and said ‘okay, I’ve got to work harder’ and I’ll have another one and another one.”
Diaz would be stripped of his belt for not fighting the late Leavander Johnson, his mandatory challenger, and instead fighting WBC lightweight king Jose Luis Castillo in March of 2005. It was a brutal bout, with Castillo stopping Diaz in the tenth round, but the Coachella resident did take some valuable lessons from the defeat.
“There’s a lot of things that he showed me that night that I hadn’t seen in my whole career, and there are so many things that you learn in defeat that you don’t when you win a fight,” said Diaz. “When you win a fight, you get out of the ring, and just go celebrate. You don’t think about the fight. And when you lose, you spend the rest of your life thinking, ‘Why did I lose? What went wrong? What caused it?’ So it’s a big difference.”
“He (Castillo) beat me with his experience, not with his power, and that gave me a lot of confidence, especially now and seeing what he’s doing,” continued Diaz. “He’s a strong warrior, and seeing how he beat (Diego) Corrales, it’s given me a lot more motivation to see that one of my only losses was against somebody like that. I lost to a great champion and a very strong guy who wore me down and who learned from the best fighter in the world, Julio Cesar Chavez. If that guy is your worst case scenario in boxing and in the lightweight division, being so strong and powerful, that gave me a lot of confidence.”
Since the loss to Castillo, Diaz has showed that confidence in whacking out Marco Perez and Russell Jones in a round each. Is that enough work to be ready for the crafty Quiles?
“It’s been a while, but I’ve done over 140 rounds of sparring with southpaws,” said Diaz. “He (Quiles) has some difficulties in being a slick southpaw and kinda awkward. He’s one of those kinds of fighters that don’t fight and don’t let you fight. But I’m really prepared for that. I’m a very dedicated fighter who doesn’t slack off and go on an eight month vacation and come back really fat. I’m always active, always in the gym, and I’m very disciplined. I have no bad habits, no addictions of any kind, and I’m a perfect fighter for a promoter or a trainer. I’m not saying talentwise or in the ring, but on how I take care of myself and my dedication. I know all that will pay off.”
The pay off may begin tonight, but for Julio Diaz, it’s not all about the glory – it’s about being a hero to his three biggest fans.
“I have three beautiful kids and that’s the only reason I do it,” he said. “I don’t do it for no one else. I’ve got to push for them and I know they’re gonna make me push to have my dream and be able to give them a better life.”
Julio Diaz knows he’s wearing the black hat tonight. Despite being one of the game’s class acts, a no nonsense fighter who believes in letting his fists do the talking, when he steps into the ring against Ricky Quiles in Hollywood, Florida (PPV 9pm ET), he’ll be the bad guy, the one trying to keep the hard luck Quiles from his dream of winning a world title.
And Diaz, who didn’t exactly strut up a rose-strewn pathway to this shot at the interim IBF lightweight crown (up for grabs due to injuries suffered by champion Jesus Chavez), is getting a little miffed at constantly hearing about Quiles 17-year odyssey to his first stab at a world title belt.
“I know his story is sad and they keep mentioning that this is his last shot, that he never had this or never had that,” Diaz told MaxBoxing after Tuesday’s final press conference. “I come a family of five fighters, and I could tell you many stories of mine that will make you cry, but every fight’s different. Just because it’s your last chance, that doesn’t mean God’s gonna help you to win. If that was the case, then I would win in the first round. If somebody’s got a sad story in boxing, it’s the Diaz family. And I’ve got a million stories. So I don’t feel bad and I know that there’s nothing boxing owes this guy. God has helped him more than enough with how many wins he has.”
One of seven children, Diaz – whose brothers Joel and Antonio fought for world titles – knows about coming up the hard way, about fighting for everything you’ve got and it still not being nearly enough. Even when he blazed his way up the ranks in 2000-01 under the Top Rank banner, earning USA Today’s Prospect of the Year award in 2000, he wasn’t the top priority for his promoter – that role went to Oscar De La Hoya.
“We’re coming from a little place that nobody even knows how to pronounce,” laughed the native of Michoacan, Mexico, who has lived much of his life in Coachella, California. “So trying to get the world to turn around and look at us was the main difficulty. We’re here on our own with nobody’s help, with nobody’s pull, without being overrated. We earned our shots, the way it should be. We didn’t get things handed to us, we weren’t protected, we ain’t no Juan Diaz or anything like that. We fight to win, whether he’s undefeated, whether it’s in his hometown or backyard – look at this, I’m getting another title shot in this guy’s hometown. I know what I’m walking into. This guy’s a flashy fighter who throws a dozen punches that don’t do any damage. But with those little flurries, how do you think the crowd will be making noise here? So that’s gonna be winning him the rounds. That’s all he has to do – throw little combinations that look nice for the crowd.”
You get the impression that Diaz has grown bitter with the sport, at least the politics of it, where sometimes being a good fighter isn’t enough to get media attention or a television date. But at 26 and approaching his prime, Diaz has embraced the hard times because it’s making him a harder fighter once the bell rings.
“Definitely, because when push comes to shove, we’re not spoiled,” he said. “We’re made hard and we were raised like that, so we’ve never been babied. When we got dropped, when it gets tough, we’re not surprised because we’ve been through it. That’s the problem with these fighters that are always babied. See, like (unbeaten WBA champion) Juan Diaz (no relation), the only time he’s been down he started crying in the ring and he couldn’t even do his interview. He’s a kid who got scared because he never felt that before, so he didn’t know how react. You can’t blame him, but people spoil you and when it gets tough you don’t know what to do because you’ve never been in that situation.”
For Diaz, the ‘Baby Bull’ that shares his last name is an easy target because of the push given to him by promoter Main Events and manager Shelly Finkel that saw him featured on Showtime, HBO, NBC, and ESPN over the course of his career. The fact that Juan Diaz is a college student in addition to a world champion makes his story even more attractive to the press. Julio Diaz hasn’t had that type of push. So if he wins tonight, is Juan Diaz first on his hit list?
“He’s been on my hit list but I don’t like to pursue that much because I don’t want to feel like I’m asking him for a fight,” said Diaz (32-3, 24 KOs). “For me, he’s not even on my level like that to give him that kind of position where I’m asking for a shot. I’ve been making my better paydays around him and I’ve been making a name for myself aside from him, so I never really needed him.”
The name Diaz has been making for himself is as one of the top 135-pounders in the world. Once a straight-ahead ****er, Diaz reinvented himself a bit after a controversial decision loss to Angel Manfredy in 2001 and a shocking TKO loss to Juan Valenzuela in 2002, and showed that he could box as well as **** in his IBF title eliminaton win against Courtney Burton in 2004.
Next would be the title shot he had waited for for years in May of 2004 against rugged Mexican Javier Jauregui. It had been a five year trek to get to the San Diego Sports Arena that night, one that many thought was three years late. It was enough pressure to crush a fighter, and Diaz knows that Quiles is feeling that pressure right about now.
“That’s gonna be one of my biggest advantages,” said Diaz. “Him coming in like that, so desperate, and this being his last shot and him wanting it so much, that’s what’s gonna defeat him. Sometimes you want something so bad, you don’t perform the way you should because you’re so anxious. And that will be his biggest mistake.”
Diaz beat Jauregui that night via a majority decision that was more in tune with the judges who scored it 118-110 than the one that had it even, and he did it by refusing to let the moment overtake him.
“You’ve got to cruise your way right through it, be patient, and really want it from your heart,” said Diaz. “This is Quiles’ first title shot and he’s taking it like it’s the last one. Who knows what’s gonna happen. When I got my shot, I took advantage of it, and even though it didn’t go the way I planned, I had a good state of mind and said ‘okay, I’ve got to work harder’ and I’ll have another one and another one.”
Diaz would be stripped of his belt for not fighting the late Leavander Johnson, his mandatory challenger, and instead fighting WBC lightweight king Jose Luis Castillo in March of 2005. It was a brutal bout, with Castillo stopping Diaz in the tenth round, but the Coachella resident did take some valuable lessons from the defeat.
“There’s a lot of things that he showed me that night that I hadn’t seen in my whole career, and there are so many things that you learn in defeat that you don’t when you win a fight,” said Diaz. “When you win a fight, you get out of the ring, and just go celebrate. You don’t think about the fight. And when you lose, you spend the rest of your life thinking, ‘Why did I lose? What went wrong? What caused it?’ So it’s a big difference.”
“He (Castillo) beat me with his experience, not with his power, and that gave me a lot of confidence, especially now and seeing what he’s doing,” continued Diaz. “He’s a strong warrior, and seeing how he beat (Diego) Corrales, it’s given me a lot more motivation to see that one of my only losses was against somebody like that. I lost to a great champion and a very strong guy who wore me down and who learned from the best fighter in the world, Julio Cesar Chavez. If that guy is your worst case scenario in boxing and in the lightweight division, being so strong and powerful, that gave me a lot of confidence.”
Since the loss to Castillo, Diaz has showed that confidence in whacking out Marco Perez and Russell Jones in a round each. Is that enough work to be ready for the crafty Quiles?
“It’s been a while, but I’ve done over 140 rounds of sparring with southpaws,” said Diaz. “He (Quiles) has some difficulties in being a slick southpaw and kinda awkward. He’s one of those kinds of fighters that don’t fight and don’t let you fight. But I’m really prepared for that. I’m a very dedicated fighter who doesn’t slack off and go on an eight month vacation and come back really fat. I’m always active, always in the gym, and I’m very disciplined. I have no bad habits, no addictions of any kind, and I’m a perfect fighter for a promoter or a trainer. I’m not saying talentwise or in the ring, but on how I take care of myself and my dedication. I know all that will pay off.”
The pay off may begin tonight, but for Julio Diaz, it’s not all about the glory – it’s about being a hero to his three biggest fans.
“I have three beautiful kids and that’s the only reason I do it,” he said. “I don’t do it for no one else. I’ve got to push for them and I know they’re gonna make me push to have my dream and be able to give them a better life.”
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