By Dan Ambrose: Former IBF/WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Diaz (35-3, 17 KO’s) is eyeing fights against undefeated World Boxing Council lightweight champion Edwin Valero (27-0, 27 KO’s), Juan Manuel Marquez and Michael Katsidis, according to Boxing News. Diaz, 26, says “If Valero wants me, I’ll take it. If Katsidis wants me, I’ll take it. My dream is to at least one of my world titles back at the end of the year.”

That could be a case of wishful thinking for Diaz, because it appears that none of those aforementioned fighters are the least bit interested in fighting Diaz at this point in time. That’s not to say that they won’t be interested in fighting him in the near future, but it appears that they all currently have bigger fish to fry. It’s hard to imagine how badly Diaz has slipped in the past couple of years.

In his last five fights, Diaz has lost three of them dating back to 2008. That’s a dramatic change from where Diaz was at in 2008 before his fight with Nate Campbell. At that time, Diaz was 33-0, and considered by many boxing experts to be the best fighter in the lightweight division.

Campbell, then 36, changed all that by beating Diaz by a 12 round decision in March 2008. Next, it was Juan Manuel Marquez who had his turn in beating Diaz, taking him out in the 9th round in February 2009. And most recently, Diaz made a bad mistake in moving up in weight to light welterweight where he was beaten by former IBF light welterweight champion Paulie Malignaggi by a 12 round decision in December.

Based on how Diaz looked in his last couple of fights, I wouldn’t give him much of any shot of beating Valero, Marquez or Katsidis. Although Diaz defeated Katsidis in the past by a 12 round split decision in September 2008, it’s questionable whether Diaz could still do the same thing now. Katsidis seems to be moving forward improving as a fighter while Diaz appears to be going downhill now.

Diaz might have a halfway decent chance of beating Marquez if they were to fight now, but only because the 36-year-old Marquez looks to have slipped a notch in the past year. However, Diaz had no answers to the uppercuts from Marquez, and once Juan realized that Diaz couldn’t stop an uppercut, he hit him repeatedly with them until he took Diaz out in the 9th.

In a rematch, the fight might end up being stopped much earlier, as Marquez will go after Diaz immediately with uppercuts and make him prove that he knows how to cope with them. My guess is Diaz won’t.