Well, at least he didn’t lose the fight.
Joseph Diaz Jr. committed a cardinal sin on Friday, coming in 3.6 pounds over the junior lightweight limit to lose his IBF title on the scale. On Saturday, the now-former champ did just enough against Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov to earn a majority draw and prevent a complete disaster.
Rakhimov would’ve won the title had he had his hand raised.
Diaz (31-1-1, 15 KOs) has experienced a number of changes since he outpointed Tevin Farmer to win his belt in January of last year, his most-recent fight.
The Los Angeles-area fighter has a newborn son. He changed management companies. He didn’t work with longtime co-trainer Joel Diaz for the Rakhimov fight. And, according to BoxingScene.com, he was arrested for drunken driving in July.
Perhaps the distractions played a role in his inability to make weight, perhaps they didn’t. Bottom line: He lost something for which he has worked hard his entire adult life before he entered the ring.
All that was left for him was to win the fight against his relatively unknown Russian opponent. And he almost did.
Diaz, who made the agreed-upon 140-pound limit Saturday morning, looked sharp the first few rounds. Rakhimov (15-0-1, 12 KOs) was the busier fighter from the start but the former titleholder landed the cleaner, eye-catching punches.
Then, in the middle rounds, Diaz allowed Rakhimov to outwork him without returning fire enough to win rounds. Many of Rakhimov’s shots hit Diaz’s gloves – he landed only 22% of his punches, according to CompuBox — but he was pushing the action.
The momentum shifted again around Round 8, when Diaz picked up his pace, timed his punches well and Rakhimov’s output fell off to some degree. That pattern continued until the end of the fight, which evidently salvaged a draw for Diaz.
One judge had it 115-113 (seven rounds to five) for Diaz. The other two scored it 114-114. Boxing Junkie had Diaz winning 115-113.
Diaz didn’t seem to be overly upset when the result was announced but he said afterward that he believes he deserved the decision.
“I’m a little upset. I thought I did enough to win the fight,” he said and then added later in the interview: “It was a close fight. The guy was throwing a lot of combinations, throwing a lot of shots, but it was just gloves. I thought I was dictating the pace, landing the body shots, hurting him and walking him down and breaking him down.
“… I thought I should’ve won the fight. It is what it is. I have to learn from this, take some time off and get right back to it.”
Diaz also apologized for the events of Friday.
“I didn’t make weight,” he said. “You know, like, I vacated my title. But it was a long layoff, man. I want to apologize to DAZN, I want to apologize to all my fans that have been rooting for me since day one and have been rocking with me and have been wanting to watch this fight.
“It was a mistake on my behalf. It was a year layoff. No excuses. I’ll get back into it.”
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