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Philippines, 28 Feb 2026 |
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MATTHYSSE WILL USE STRENGTH AND POWER TO GIVE PACQUIAO PROBLEMS SAYS TRAINER JOEL DIAZ By Maloney L. Samaco PhilBoxing.com Sun, 08 Apr 2018  Joel Diaz will be at the corner of WBA "regular" welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse as head trainer when the Argentine titlist faces Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao on July 14 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. According to Diaz, Matthysse will arrive in Indio, California to begin his training in what the boxer called as the most important fight of his life. Diaz is not new to a Pacquiao fight. In fact he was in Timothy Bradley's corner in two encounters with the eight-division world champion. He has now an experience on how Pacquiao fights based on those couple of tussles with the Filipino boxing legend. Diaz declared that presently Pacquiao is not the same young warrior that fought Bradley, and has confidence in Matthysse as a fighter who takes advantage of his skills despite his age. Diaz believes that the Argentine boxer's hunger will be his superiority over the veteran Filipino fighter. "Lucas is coming next week, the fight is good because I already know Pacquiao when we were with Bradley, and I know that in Matthysse I have a fighter with a lot of strength in both fists, that we must use a different strategy, let's base ourselves in his strength and his power to make Pacquiao suffer," pronounced Joel Diaz over ESPN Deportes. Diaz is positive that both fighters will satisfy their audience despite that they are no longer at the prime of their boxing careers. But he thinks Matthysse will achieve the biggest win in his fighting profession. "Age says everything, those of us who know boxing know that Pacquiao and Matthysse are not the youngsters that they were before, that the best already happened for them, but they will give a good show and that is a fact. Both are in the same situation, but I think Lucas is more hungry, he just won the championship and I know he will come very motivated to achieve the greatest win of his career." Two European sparring partners will assist Matthysse to prepare him to be at the best shape of his career for his most significant match against Pacquiao. According to Diaz, the champion will use his punching power which knocked out 36 out of 39 opponents he defeated and will give Manny some problems. "Lucas has the championship and that's worth a lot for Pacquiao at the moment, it's going to cost Pacquiao a lot of work because Matthysse has power. If Pacquiao wants to come and do what he did with others, he's going to find a lot of problems," said the veteran trainer. Joel Diaz from Michoacan, Mexico is a retired Mexican-American professional boxer, who fought in the lightweight division when he was active. He is currently considered one of the best trainers in the world. He is the brother of boxer Antonio Diaz and former world champion Julio Diaz. Due to a detached retina that made him blind on one eye Joel retired from boxing and concentrated on training fighters. Some of the notable fighters who have trained under D?az include, Antonio D?az, Julio D?az, Timothy Bradley, Abner Mares, Vicente Escobedo, UFC fighter Cub Swanson, Ruslan Provodnikov. Diego De La Hoya, Omar Figueroa, Mike Noriega, Jamie Kavanagh, Francisco Vargas, and Matthysse. Matthysse is facing a big challenge in clashing with a great legend like Manny Pacquiao. The Pacquiao showdown is one big fight that he is searching, just as fellow Argentines Oscar Bonavena and Marcos Maidana had their time against Muhammad Ali and Floyd Mayweather, respectively. Matthysse says it's now his turn to fight a world boxing legend. ?Bonavena fought with Ali, ?Chino? Maidana with Mayweather (twice) and it?s my turn to fight Pacquiao," Matthysse told reporters in Argentina as quoted by BoxingScene.com. ?I feel happy, it?s very exciting to fight with Manny Pacquiao, a boxing legend; for me, as an athlete, it is very big to face a monster like him, to enter the ring for a fight with him." Matthysse (39-4, 36 KOs) knows he will be the underdog to defeat Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KO), but also knows that a big win would catapult him to a very notable step in the history of boxing in Argentina and Latin America. That is why he has promised to give his all in the hardest and most rigid training camp of his fighting career. It was only a World Boxing Association title, among the major boxing governing bodies, which Pacquiao failed to win in his storied boxing career. He faltered twice, the first time against Juan Manuel Marquez, when they fought for the featherweight championship to a split draw, and the second time when he lost by unanimous decision to Floyd Mayweather for the welterweight championship belt. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.  |
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