De La Hoya Wants Diaz to Fight Hatton

By Eric Thomas: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions wants Juan Diaz to fight Ricky Hatton, according to the boxing news site Fight Hype. While Diaz, 25, was being interviewed after last Saturday night’s fight by Max Kellerman, De La Hoya whispered in Diaz’s ear, telling Diaz to mention Hatton’s name to Kellerman as someone Juan would like to fight next.

Diaz later said in an interview with Ben Thompson that he’d be open to fight against Hatton, and that he’d be interested in fighting in Manchester, England, Hatton’s home town. Diaz appears to be astute enough to realize that Hatton, the much bigger star compared to him, would probably not see any reason to travel to Diaz’s home town of Houston, Texas, especially after seeing how Paulie Malignaggi ended up on the wrong side of a controversial decision.

A fight with Hatton would give the younger Diaz a huge payday, much bigger than his fights against Juan Manuel Marquez, Malignaggi, Nate Campbell and Acelino Freitas, the best opponents of Diaz’s career thus far.

It was interesting to see how De La Hoya appeared not to miss a beat as he threw out the name for the tongue tied Diaz while he was being interviewed by Kellerman. De La Hoya knows that Hatton is Diaz’s best chance at a big pay day and he didn’t want Diaz to miss out on the chance of mentioning Hatton’s name while the cameras were on him and a big national audience was watching Diaz be interviewed.

Although it’s a move that is kind of self serving on De La Hoya’s part, it’s something that would serve not only Golden Boy Promotions, but also Hatton and, of course, Diaz. Hatton needs a fight right now to get his confidence back and the light-hitting Diaz would be an opponent that would be made to order for Hatton. Diaz isn’t fast like Manny Pacquiao, nor is he a southpaw.

Hatton wouldn’t have to worry about being hit with any tricky right hooks from Diaz, because he doesn’t throw right hooks. Hatton would have a decent chance of winning the fight. Goodness knows, Hatton needs a win right about now to make people forget about his 2nd round knockout loss to Pacquiao. Although Hatton needs this fight more than Golden Boy and Diaz, the chances of him coming out of his self induced inertia would seem slim at this point. It will probably take something monumental to get Hatton back in the ring at this point, perhaps him getting bored out of his mind not fighting.

Diaz wants to also fight a rematch with Juan Manuel Marquez to try and avenge his 9th round TKO loss to Marquez in February. I kind of doubt that Diaz will still be interested in fighting Marquez should Marquez get beaten up by Floyd Mayweather Jr. next month on September 19th. Marquez won’t need a fight with Diaz if he beats Mayweather, because Marquez will be going after a third fight with Manny Pacquiao and wouldn’t need to waste time going over old ground with another fight with Diaz.

I doubt that Diaz would do any better in a rematch with Marquez. Diaz’s skin tears too easily, he’s too weak of a puncher and he fades badly in the last four rounds of his fights. Marquez beat Diaz to a pulp in the 8th and 9th rounds of his fight with him.

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