LAS VEGAS – The first time Juan Diaz and Juan Manuel Marquez met, their match was deemed the 2009 “Fight of the Year.”
That means they have quite a bit to live up to when they meet in the rematch at Mandalay Bay Event Center on HBO Pay Per View Saturday night. In the co-feature, Danny Jacobs of Brownsville will meet Dmitry Pirog for the WBO middleweight title.
The first match between Diaz and Marquez didn’t go the distance. It was a toe-to-toe affair that Marquez won by ninth round KO. It was a close fight before Marquez landed the knockout shot. One judge had Diaz ahead on the scorecards, one had Marquez ahead and one had it even.
Even though he lost, Diaz said it was an honor to be involved in that fight.
“I’m very happy that I was able to be in one of those fights,” Diaz said. “That had always been my dream, to be in one of those all-out wars. But obviously, in my dream the outcome wasn’t the outcome that happened in 2009. I was the winner.
“But all in all, I think that it was a win-win situation. It exposed me to something I had never experienced before. I had never been stopped in my career. I had never really been hurt like I was hurt in that fight, so now I’ve experienced that. I had never been in such a big fight with so many people and just the atmosphere was just amazing, which now I have that experience and now I can go into the fight relaxed, as I have done in my previous fights.”
Ronnie Shields, Diaz’ trainer, said they had a sound strategy going into the first match against Marquez. But Diaz veered off course.
“I told him we needed to keep the pressure on, we needed to basically just jab,” Shield said. “And he started falling in with it (the jab) and he got caught and we paid for it. So now that’s one thing that we’re really working on is keeping him to where he doesn’t fall in (with) the punches so he can’t get hit with those uppercuts. We know Marquez is probably going to fight the same kind of fight that he fought and let Juan dictate everything, but we have a few surprises for him also.”
Both Diaz and Marquez have moved on since that fight and both have suffered setbacks. Diaz moved up to 140 pounds and lost a decision to Paulie Malignaggi in his last fight. Marquez (50-5-1, 37 KOs) moved up to welterweight to take on Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and lost a 12-round decision, but he was able to keep his lightweight titles. Those titles, the WBO and WBA, are on the line against Diaz.
For Diaz (35-3, 17 KOs) this is a crossroads fight. He just graduated from the University of Houston and is planning on going to law school. He is only 26 years old, but he turned pro when he was 17. Most of his fights are slugfests. Getting on with the next phase of his life wouldn’t be a bad thing. But first he wants to see if he can climb back to the top of the lightweight division.
“I see this as a win-win situation for me, because this fight is going to prove to me whether I have it or I don’t. This fight right here is what’s going to take me to the top and make me the super star that I’ve been wanting to be in the lightweight division,” Diaz said. “But if it doesn’t happen then that means it’s not meant to be and I’ll move on to bigger and better things, which could be start from the bottom and pick up the pieces to rebuild myself up or just completely do a 360 – I mean a 180 – and just go in the opposite direction.”
Even before the loss to Malignaggi, Diaz was trying to re-establish himself in the lightweight division. If he can beat Marquez and take away his titles, then Diaz will have succeeded in that. It might take another “Fight of the Year” effort on his part. At least this time, Diaz would like to be other side of the equation – the winning side.
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PUNCHLINE Danny Jacobs, the four-time Daily News Golden Glove winner as an amateur, said that he has maintained his focus on fighting Dmitry Pirog for the WBO middleweight title, despite the fact that his grandmother, Cordelia, died on Sunday after a bout with cancer. Jacobs will take a redeye flight back to New York following his fight in order to attend the funeral on Sunday.
