SANTA MONICA, California ? There?s only one way David Diaz can emerge triumphant Saturday night.
But it?s not going to be easy because the guy on the opposite corner also thrives on what Diaz intends to do at Mandalay Bay.
Diaz plans to put pressure on Manny Pacquiao at the onset and hope ? and also pray ? that the Filipino favorite crumbles under the force of his swarming offense.
“I will get out and put pressure on him and try to beat him at his own game,” Diaz told a handful of Manila-based writers Monday afternoon at the Mariasol Cocina Mexicana in this bustling city by the Pacific Ocean.
“I am ready to go 12 rounds and I am even ready to go three extra rounds if they want me to,” said Diaz, whose World Boxing Council (WBC) lightweight title belt Pacquiao will aspire to add to his current collection of three sanctioned world championships in three weight classes.
Diaz arrived here late Sunday night from Chicago and didn?t waste precious time in keeping his excellent physical condition in tip-top shape as he got out of his hotel room for a morning run before attending a press conference in the afternoon.
“This fight is for Mexico, my wife, my kids and for everybody who have believed in me. I don?t care if people say Manny will win by knockout. Whatever happens, happens. I just know what to do to win this fight and we are going to get out there and try to do it,” said Diaz, who turned 32 last June 7 and who?ll be making the second defense of the WBC 135-lb crown.
Top Rank chief Bob Arum was on hand to welcome the 29-year-old Pacquiao and Diaz, who are both under contract with him and he guaranteed fight fans of a “terrific fight and a terrific event.”
“I think this will do well in the pay-per-view and in the gate and I feel that Manny at 135 lbs would be better than Manny at 130 lbs but it?s going to be a tough fight for him,” said the seventy-something Harvard-educated, New York-bred lawyer.
Diaz enters the ring with a 34-1-1 win-loss-draw record with 17 knockouts while Pacquiao, acknowledged presently as boxing?s best pound for pound, sports a 46-3-2 mark with 34 stoppages.
Pacquiao is being lined up to see action in the first week of November possibly against British Ricky Hatton in a rich super-lightweight (140 lbs) collision.
But negotiations will have to wait until the end of Pacquiao-Diaz.
In the meantime, Diaz also has plans and he is hopeful that it is him, and not Pacquiao, who gets to look forward to a big payday in November.
