Reyes Defeats Diaz in Upset

By Boxing News - 04/05/2009 - Comments

diaz54464By Manuel Perez: In a huge loss for former International Boxing Federation (IBF) lightweight champion Julio Diaz (36-5, 26 KOs), he was defeated by a 5th round TKO by Rolando Reyes (31-4-2, 20 KOs) tonight at the Frank Erwin Center, in Austin, Texas. Diaz, 29, was dropped twice in the 5th round from big shots from Reyes. After the 2nd knockdown of the round, the referee called a stop to the fight.

Diaz looked impressive in the first four rounds, landing well to the body with beautiful hooks and doubling the up Reyes’ head. It looked at this point in the fight that Diaz was well on his way to an easy knockout win or at the minimum, a one-sided decision.

However, Reyes didn’t come there just to lose, and fired off a massive right hand in the 5th that mortally hurt Diaz. Reyes then added a nice left hand that put Diaz down. Diaz, badly hurt, made it to his feet and attempted to continue fighting but was dropped almost immediately by a shower of punches from Reyes. This time, the referee stepped in and called a halt to the bout at 2:17.

Reyes, 30, did little punching in the fight, holding back with his shots round after round and looking for an opening. This lack of punching caused the ringside crowd to boo loudly beginning in the 1st round and continuing to do so off and on for the remainder of the bout.

The boos had no effect on Reyes, who ignored them and continued to just stand and study Diaz with his guard up, infrequently throwing shots. Diaz, on the other hand, seemed to take the booing personal and upped the pace of his offense each time the crowd would start booing. In between rounds, Diaz’s trainer reminded him again and again to not listen to the crowd and focus on his game plan.

Reyes landed two big right hands in the 1st round, both coming right after each with a minute to go in the round. Both shots landed to the side of Diaz’s head and seemed to stun him slightly. However, Reyes didn’t follow up with anything else beyond that.

Diaz dominated the 2nd round, jabbing, working the body with hooks and throwing right hands over the top. Reyes held back with his punches just as in the 1st round, driving the crowd mad with anger in the process. At the end of the round, Reyes tagged Diaz with a big left hand. Other than that, Reyes did nothing in the round.

The booing got louder in the 3rd round, as Reyes only attempted a small handful of shots, and again held back and waited for an opening. Diaz continued his domination, throwing jabs and hooks and controlling the action. After the 3rd round, Reyes’ trainer urged him to start throwing punches.

Unfortunately, Reyes again did little in the round, and was limited to a couple of left hands and nothing much else. In the meantime, Reyes’s face was beginning to redden around his left cheek from the shots he was eating from Diaz.

In the 5th round, Diaz continued his total mastery of Reyes, pounding him with combinations to the head and body. The crowd continued booing as well, still upset because Reyes was just standing without fighting back. Finally, with little more than a minute to go in the round, Reyes suddenly landed a hard left-right combination while backed against the ropes by Diaz.

The punches drove Diaz back a couple of steps. Reyes, instead of stopping with his punches, continued throwing and landed a left hand, a right and then a big right hand that snapped Diaz’s head back, hurting him. Diaz took a couple more steps backwards and was nailed by two right hands and then powerful left hook that sent him down on the canvas.

After Diaz got up, he was met with a furious charge from Reyes, who landed two solid right hands and then a big right uppercut that snapped Diaz’s head around, causing him to stumble. Reyes then finished Diaz off with a right hand that sent him down for the 2nd time in the round. The referee then stepped in and stopped the bout at 2:17 of the round.

Prior to this fight, Diaz had been looking to repairing the damage to his boxing career inflicted upon him by Juan Diaz, who stopped him in the 9th round of a one-sided bout in October 2007, taking Julio’s IBF title in the process.

Following that defeat, Julio Diaz had won two consecutive fights against soft opposition.
Perhaps Reyes was a little better than Diaz expected him to be and might have been overlooked by Julio coming into this fight.

“I came ready to give it all I got,” said Reyes after the fight. “The first couple of rounds I was studying him to see what he [Diaz] has that I didn’t know of before. My trainer told me ‘we’re here to fight, so let’s do it already.’ Yeah, he [Diaz] was more active and coming forward. As soon as I landed a good shot, I just kept fight on him. I proved to the people what I have. I came ready and I’m ready for a title, whoever is out there, I’ll go after them.”

In other action on the card, super featherweight Ricardo Castillo defeated Andres Ledesma by an 8-round unanimous decision.