By Jeff Aranow: Felix Diaz (19-1, 9 KOs) will be challenging WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Terence “Bud” Crawford (30-0, 21 KOs) on May 20 on HBO Championship Boxing at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. This is the fight that many fans wanted to see. Crawford’s promoters at Top Rank were interested in matching him against Amir Imam or Adrian Granados. Fortunately for the boxing fans, Diaz will be the one facing Crawford on May 20.
Granados and Imam are good fighters, but both of them have been beaten recently, and it would be difficult to get interested in a fight involving Crawford fighting another recently beaten fighter.
Granados likely would have gotten the Crawford fight if he hadn’t just lost a fight to Adrien Broner last February. The loss wasn’t the big deal. It was the punishment that Granados took in the fight. For Granados to bounce back from that loss to get back in the ring on May 20 just 3 months later, it would have been really tough on him. Besides that, it would be potentially difficult to get the knowledgeable boxing fans interested in seeing Crawford fight a guy that was coming off of a loss.
Crawford’s last opponent John Molina Jr. came into their fight with 3 defeats in his last 5 fights. When you’re facing guys that are losing instead of winning, it takes the meaning out of the fights being championship level. Another problem that Crawford has is the 140 lb. division is barren of big name fighters right now.
The contract for the Crawford-Diaz fight still hasn’t been signed yet, according to Dan Rafael. However, the terms have been agreed to, and they’re just going over the final points for the fight before it gets made. For Crawford, 29, this will be his fifth defense of his World Boxing Organization title. Crawford is hoping to face the winner of the unification fight between WBA 140lb. champion Ricky Burns and IBF champion Julius Indongo. Crawford will need to wait and see whether Top Rank can get the winner of that fight to face him.
In the meantime, Crawford will be defending against a very tough fighter in 2008 Olympic gold medalist Felix Diaz. Despite winning a gold medal in the Olympics for the Dominican Republic, Diaz has not found great success as a pro. He was beaten by Lamont Peterson by a close 12 round majority decision in 2015. That was a controversial decision, because a lot of boxing fans thought Diaz did enough to deserve the win.
Diaz’s biggest problem is his promoters haven’t matched him against the type of opposition that could take his career to the next level. Diaz’s biggest win thus far was his 10 round unanimous decision over Sammy Vasquez last July. Diaz beat Granados by a 10 round majority decision in 2014. Diaz did a better job beating Granados than Broner did recently.
Crawford stopped John Molina Jr. in the 8th round in his last fight in December. In Crawford’s recent fights before that, he beat Viktor Postol, Henry Lundy, Dierry Jean, Thomas Duloreme and Raymundo Beltran. Crawford’s best wins of his career were against Burns and Yuriorkis Gamboa. Arum would like to match Crawford against Manny Pacquiao later on this year if the fight can get made. It would be up to Pacquiao. Arum likely would have made the Pacquiao vs. Crawford fight last year if Pacquiao had agreed to it. Instead, Arum matched Pacquiao against two of his Top Rank stable fighters Tim Bradley and Jessie Vargas. Pacquiao could be facing another one of Arum’s fighters in Jeff Horn next.
“Crawford said that he wanted to defend his titles against the best opponent we can get,” Crawford’s promoter Bob Arum said to espn.com. “The problem with Diaz was the original asking price was higher than other candidates, appreciably higher. After negotiating, the ask was not appreciably higher and, therefore, we were resolved to make the match because he was the best guy available.”
Arum plans on trying to get his fighter lightweight Raymundo Beltran in the co-feature against Jonathan Maicelo. Also on the card will be 2016 Olympic silver medalist Shakur Stevenson making his pro debut.