Photo by Lina Baker/Instant Boxing
On Friday, December 18, 2015, Joseph Diaz (19-0, 11 KOs) scored a second-round knockout against Hugo Partida (21-7-2, 17 KOs) to win the vacant NABF Featherweight title at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio California.
After taking some shots on his gloves and measuring Partida out for a bit, Diaz began landing counter left hands and shots to the body that clearly hurt Partida in Round 1.
Diaz, 23, finished the round by comfortably walking Partida down to land hard shots to the body and head.
“We came with a great game plan to land effective shots right away and to dig to the body and try to hurt him,” said Diaz, of South El Monte, California.
Indeed, in the following round, Diaz began landing at will and landed a left hand that hurt Partida and send him stumbling onto the ropes. Diaz would then close the show with a series of straight left hands that forced referee Pat Russell to stop the fight.
Photo by Lina Baker/Instant Boxing
“I dug into the body in the first round and had him hurt. And then I put some good powerful shots on top and got him out,” said Diaz, who is now the proud owner of an NABF strap.
Diaz was previously a 122-pound prospect, but he is now campaigning at the Featherweight limit of 126 pounds in hopes of breaking out onto the major boxing networks for a world title opportunity.
“I feel very strong at this weight, and I make the weight pretty good. I just feel like 126 is going to be my weight,” said Diaz.
“I knew that I had to take care of business and get the win no matter what. I hope to get the top 10 guys in my division next year, fight on the bigger networks and get a title shot by the end of next year,” said Diaz.
In the tight’s co-main event, Andrew Cancio (16-3-2, 12 KOs) scored an upset eight-round TKO against Rene Alvarado (26-6, 16 KOs) in a scheduled 10-round Featherweight fight.
“I knew it was close; some rounds were mine and some rounds were his. Once my corner told me he was hurt, I started throwing combinations. I landed an uppercut and a right, and he just couldn’t get himself together so I got the TKO victory,” said Cancio.
In the night’s first televised fight, Taishan Dong (6-0, 3 KOs) scored a unanimous decision victory against Daniel Arambula (3-2, 1 KO)
For tonight’s full results page, click here.
A full stream tonight’s fights is also available below:
