Click below to access the full-length interview with Joel Diaz (Photo: Naoki Fukuda)
By Chris Robinson
On Sunday afternoon I caught up with trainer Joel Diaz, primarily to get his thoughts on the rematch that is set to take place between his fighter Tim Bradley and Manny Pacquiao this April in Las Vegas.
In June of 2012, Bradley upset Pacquiao via split-decision in a result that caused a great deal of backlash. Diaz admittedly was affected by all of the controversy that swirled around the first match and is preparing Bradley to erase all doubts the second time around.
Check below for highlights from my discussion with Diaz.
Just another fight…
“It’s just another fight. We’ve been in the ring with the guy already. We already know what he’s got. We already know what he’s going to do. We already know the strategy to beat him and most of all, we’re going into the fight against odds, as always.”
Staying away from controversy…
“People always underestimate Bradley. I can tell you it’s not going to be easy for Pacquiao to beat Bradley. [The fight] is going to give us peace of mind. Because of the controversy, the majority of people in the world didn’t think Bradley won that fight. So now we’re going into this fight with the mentality that it cannot be a controversy. We’re going to have to go in there and win and worst case scenario, we lose, that’s just the way the sport is.”
Learning from the first Pacquiao fight…
“What we learned from Pacquiao is Pacquiao is a strong fighter. He has speed but at the same time his speed is not fast enough to catch Bradley because in that fight you saw that the commentators misinformed the whole world; making Manny Pacquiao the great fighter, which he wasn’t. At the end of 12 rounds, Tim’s face was completely clear and clean. Tim Bradley wasn’t even sore from his face. He hardly got hit.”
Not the same Manny…
“Manny Pacquiao was only fighting 30 seconds out of every round. We learned that when you can’t hit your opponent, obviously you get frustrated. Pacquiao just got frustrated, obviously because he couldn’t hit Bradley. This time around, I know that with a little help that Juan Manuel Marquez put in for us by putting him to sleep, I just think that Manny Pacquiao, at this point in his career, he’s not the Pacquiao that he was three or four years ago.”
Ready to fight…
“Timothy’s confidence is high after he beat Juan Manuel Marquez. He’s a more mature fighter. He knows what to expect because he’s been in the ring with Manny. We just want the whole world to know that we’re ready to fight and most of all we want to walk away with no controversy.”
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Chris Robinson can be reached at Trimond@aol.com