By Manuel Perez: Former lightweight champion Juan Diaz (34-1, 17 KOs) will be making a step up in competition by facing Juan Manuel Marquez (49-4-1, 36 KOs) on February 28th at the Toyota Center, Houston, Texas. Diaz, 25, is looking to rack up his biggest win of his career against the 35-year-old Marquez, but in order for Diaz to do that, he’s going to have to look a lot better than he’s looked in his last two fights, one of which resulted in a 12-round split decision loss to Nate Campbell in March 2008.
Diaz responded with a 12-round split victory over Michael Katsidis in September, but looked very beatable in that fight and nothing like his form prior to getting beaten by Campbell.
Diaz, ranked #3 in the WBO & IBF, as well as #6 in the WBA and #8 in the WBC, needs to look good if he wants to somehow get a shot against Manny Pacquiao, the fighter that almost every fight from the featherweight division to the welterweights want to fight. Diaz, however, has yet to prove that he’s got what it takes to beat a fighter in the class of Marquez, as previous to his fights with Campbell and Katsidis, the best opposition that Diaz had fought was a badly faded Acelino Freitas, and a fight against Julio Diaz.
In both fights those fights, Juan, a former amateur star with a record of 105-5, looked spectacular in beating them and picking up the IBF, WBA and WBO lightweight belts. However, when Diaz met up with the 36-year-old Campbell in March, things didn’t work out like he had planned. Fighting well in the first five rounds, Diaz was cut over his left eye in the 6th and then quickly seemed to run out of gas in the remaining six rounds of the fight as Campbell became the aggressor.
Later on, Diaz would point to the cut as the reason why his performance had dropped off. The cut was bad, there’s no doubt about it, but Campbell looked very good and it’s questionable whether Diaz would have been able to stand and trade with him for another six rounds. In hindsight, Diaz’s fighting style, one which includes a lot of trading of shots, seemed to be all wrong for a big puncher like Campbell, who in the end just seemed too strong for Diaz.
Marquez, 35, has looked good in his past three fights, beating both Rocky Juarez and Joel Casamayor while losing a controversial 12-round split decision to Pacquiao. I saw the fight was an easy victory for Marquez and thought the judges were asleep at the wheel on that night. Indeed, the only fight that Marquez appears to have lost in his entire career is his fight against Freddie Norwood in 1999, a fight that was very close.
Marquez fought to a 12-round draw with Pacquiao in 2004, a fight in which Marquez was dropped three times in the 1st round. However, after that knockdown, Marquez completely took over the fight and appeared to win all of the remaining rounds.
Unfortunately for Marquez, he once again was given the bad end of the stick and given a draw for all his domination of Pacquiao. Now, Marquez is hoping that a victory over Diaz will get him a third chance at Pacquiao. I doubt it will. Even if it does, short of a knockout, I can’t see Marquez, a fighter not nearly as popular world wide as Pacquiao, would be given the decision.
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