By Manuel Perez: Showing no ill effects of his previous loss a fight earlier, talented lightweight contender Juan Diaz (34-1, 17 KOs) defeated Australian Michael Katsidis (32-2, 20 KOs) by a 12-round split decision on Saturday night at the Toyota Center, in Houston, Texas. The final judges’ scores were 115-113, 116-112 for Diaz and 11I-115 for Katsidis. I’m not exactly sure what fight the third judge was watching because it seemed like a clear cut win for Diaz, who dominated almost the entire fight other than a couple of rounds. I had Diaz winning 10 rounds to 2 for Katsidis. It was a case of having too much speed, a better work rate and much better overall talent that the slower Katsidis.

The outcome might have been different, however, if Katsidis hadn’t focused so much on trying to box with Diaz. Believe me, Katsidis looked much different from his previous fights. Instead of trying to slug it out with Diaz, which me might have had a chance at succeeding at given Katsidis’s enormous punching power, he tried to use head movement, feints and bob and weave style to box with Diaz. It was useless. Katsidis wasn’t suited for this style of fighting and all it did was take away his best weapon – his power – and turn him into a glorified sparring partner. Along the way, of course, Katsidis took a terrible beating, sustaining nasty cuts over both eyes and a big purple bruise under his left eye.

For the most part, he looked almost identical to the sorry shape he was left in after his grueling 12-round decision win over Czar Amonsot in July 2007, a fight in which Katsidis’ fast was cut to ribbons around both eyes. Although this wasn’t quite as bad as that fight, perhaps due to Diaz’s lesser power than Amonsot, it was close. Diaz, who was coming off a loss in his last fight, a 12-round split decision to Nate Campbell in March, appeared to tire slightly after the 7th round, which enabled Katsidis to win the 8th and 9th rounds. Katsidis willed himself through both rounds, slightly outworking Diaz with weak shots. However, Diaz got his second wind and came back to easily win rounds ten through twelve without any problems at all.

The fight was never close, as Diaz had way too much speed and a much better work rate than Katsidis. Diaz did an excellent job of preventing Katsidis from getting his shots off by constantly turning in tight circles, making Katsidis have to move his feet and follow him around constantly. It was a brilliant strategy because the Australian, a fighter with only average boxing talent, seemed uncomfortable with having to move his feet constantly. When he would eventually get in close to try and land his shots, Katsidis would find himself getting hit with blistering combinations from the faster Diaz, who poured in the shots one after another.

If Katsidis would land a particularly hard shot, Diaz would respond with a flurry or hard shots of his own. This seemed to have the effect of causing Katsidis to lighten up with his punches out of fear of the retaliation that he would be met with by Diaz when if he did hit hard. In the end, Katsidis had nothing to answer Diaz back with. Without the speed or work rate working for him, all Katsidis had was his power, and when seemed confused and afraid to use it except on very rare occasions.

In hindsight, it was probably a big mistake for him to be fighting someone as good as Diaz given the fact that Katsidis lost his previous fight by a 10th round knockout to Joel Casamayor in March. He would have been much better off letting himself heal from that bout and build up his confidence by facing a lower quality fighter. Afterwards, he stated that he doesn’t want to fight lower quality fighters and will continue fighting top talent.