By Allan Fox: Joseph Diaz Jr. (26-0, 14 KOs) maintains that he’s been overlooked by WBC featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr. (28-1, 17 KOs) for their fight tonight, and he plans on making him pay for overlooking him by beating him in front of his own boxing fans at the MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
Russell Jr. has obviously seen the 25-year-old Diaz’s past fights, noted his lack of punching power, slower hand speed and his less than impressive opposition that he’s beaten, and he assumes that he’s going to have little trouble defeating him tonight.
“I absolutely think Gary is overlooking me,” Diaz Jr. said. ”I think he underestimated me. I’ve trained for this my whole entire life. This opportunity has been presented to me by my hard work and it’s really the opportunity of a lifetime. I can’t wait to show everybody my skills and what I’m truly about.”
Diaz won’t be able to beat Russell Jr. by boxing him. He’s going to need to use his size by putting pressure on him, forcing him to fight hard, and wearing him down. Diaz has to take advantage of Russell’s inactivity by forcing him to fight as hard as possible to wear him down. Diaz has a lot of advantages in this fight, because Russell doesn’t appear to love the sport as much as he does.
Diaz needs to take his title from him. Russell Jr. will be most dangerous in the first 4 rounds. That’s when fighters that fight rarely, like he does, are at their best. If Diaz can drag Russell Jr. into the later rounds, he can beat him aggression and pressure.
Diaz has the wins on his resume as a pro for him to be taken seriously by Russell Jr. If he’s not being taken seriously after beating Victor Terrazas and Horacio Garcia, then it’s a mistake on Russell’s part. Diaz has a very good chance of winning tonight with his youth, size, work rate and just by being the much busier fighter with his career. While has been busy fighting 2 to 4 times per year, Russell Jr. has been plodding along, fighting once a year and barely getting enough fights in to keep his WBC title.
Diaz Jr. is a 2012 U.S Olympian while Russell Jr. is a 2008 U.S Olympian. Russell Jr. was unable to perform in the 2008 Olympics after passing out before the weigh-in. Diaz was eliminated in his second fight in the 2012 Olympics in losing to Lazaro Alvarez of Cuba by a 21-15 score.
Since both fighters made it to the Olympics, you can’t learn much about who will win tonight based off that. You must look at how the two of them have performed in their fights since turning pro. Right now, Russell Jr. looks like the faster, stronger and better skilled fighter of the two. Diaz Jr. has looked good against the fighters he’s beaten, but he’s mostly just done it on size advantage than him being incredibly skilled or powerful.
Some boxing fans think Diaz Jr. is a weight bully. Whether he is or isn’t, he’s going to need more than a weight advantage tonight for him to beat Diaz Jr., because this is a very talented fighter he’s facing inside the ring. This isn’t the typical guy that Diaz has been beating lately in Victor Terrazas, Rafael Rivera, Manuel Avila and Horacio Garcia.
Russell Jr. will be emerging from a layoff of one-year when he faces his mandatory challenger Diaz tonight on Showtime Boxing at 10:05 p.m. ET/PT. For Russell, it’s now normal for him to fight only once a year in defending his WBC 126lb title. He doesn’t want to fight often, and he talks of wanting to make the most money possible for his fights.
That hasn’t happened, thanks to his rare fighting schedule. But he does have hopes of taking on the other champions at featherweight if he can get past the 25-year-old Diaz Jr. tonight. Whether those fights against the other 126lb champions take place in 2018 or in 2019 is the question. Russell’s decision to fight as seldom as possible hasn’t increased his popularity in the boxing world to where the other champions in the weight class are beating down his door demanding a fight against him.
Russell Jr. is almost forgotten when he’s in between fights, which is the way is it is in the sport of boxing when a fighter chooses to compete on an annual basis only instead of staying in the public eye by fighting as much as possible. Middleweight champion Gennady is one of the busiest champions in boxing, fighting three times a year when possible. On the opposite side of the spectrum, you have Russell Jr., who fights just once a year and is contest with that activity level.
Trainer Gary Russell Sr., the father of Russell Jr., isn’t happy with his son fighting only once a year. He’d like for Russell Jr. to fight three times per year if he could rather than limiting his career by fighting every 12 months.
“I don’t like it,” Russell Sr. said about Russell Jr’s decision to fight just once a year. “I want him to fight more. Three times (per year) at least. My hands are tied. I give him advice. I advocated for more fights, it didn’t happen. I really want him to fight more.”
Russell Jr. is one of the rare champions that intentionally choose to fight only the minimum about of times allowable without being stripped of his WBC featherweight title by the World Boxing Council for inactivity. Most champions understand for them to make as much money as possible, they need to fight as frequently as possible. They understand that for them to increase their popularity, they need to be as active as possible, so the casual boxing fans can see them and become fans. Russell Jr. seems to lack ambition for some reason and is stunting his own career with his inactivity.
Russell Jr. won the WBC title in stopping Jhonny Gonzalez in round 4, and he’s defended the title just twice since then, beating Patrick Hyland by a 2nd round knockout in April 2016 and Oscar Escandon by a 7th round knockout in May 2017. The victory over Escandon was a good one, but the fight against Hyland was a crime. It was such a horrible mismatch that it was surprising that Russell Jr. even bothered to take the fight.
It didn’t do much for him. In fact, Russell Jr. was criticized by a massive amount of boxing fans for taking on such an over-matched opponent. Russell Jr. has looked good in winning his fights in such a one-sided fashion, but he hasn’t helped himself by his failure to fight better opposition and by not being busy enough with his career. In terms of the sport, it would be better if Diaz Jr. were to win the fight tonight, because he would at least be counted on to defend the World Boxing Council featherweight title two times per year rather than sitting on his backside and doing the minimal to keep his title.
“Don’t get me going. I really think he needs to be fighting more,” Russell Sr. said. ”He makes good money. Not millions. He could probably get that, have five, six fights max and walk away. Get your money, buy your property and move on.”
Russell Jr. could be setting himself up for life by staying busy, fighting frequently as possible, but he’s not going that. His inactivity might hurt him tonight when he faces Diaz Jr., because this is a guy that you need to be as sharp as possible to beat, and I don’t know that fighting once a year for the last two years is going to get the job done for Russell Jr.
Russell Jr. has ideas of moving up to super featherweight to go after the champions in that weight class if he can’t get the fighters in the featherweight division to fight him. He should make that move if he’s going to be stuck sitting for an entire year.
Prediction
Russell Jr. will likely box his way to a 12 round unanimous decision if he doesn’t wear down. If Russell Jr. can stay on the outside, he should be able to win. Diaz has a very good chance of winning this fight if he starts applying pressure as early as possible. The key to beating Russell is to box him the same way Vasyl Lomachenko did in 2014.