Golden Boy Promotions‘ NABF Featherweight champion, Joseph “JoJo” Diaz Jr. (24-0, 14 KOs) took on a late replacement opponent in Rafael Rivera (25-1-2, 16 KOs), as the two headlined the undercard portion of the HBO Pay-Per-View of Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Gennady “GGG” Golovkin, ‘Middleweight Supremacy‘ fight card on Saturday, September 16th, from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, NV.
The winner of this bout was to be named the WBC’s mandatory challenger for current Featherweight champion, Gary Russell Jr (28-1, 17 KOs).
Diaz Jr. was not only the much bigger fighter in the ring but he also dominated the fight in a very tactical manner from start to finish. In his normal fashion, Diaz Jr. showed excellent patience in early rounds and then accelerated his attack as the fight continued on.
Diaz proved to out class Rivera in all areas of the fight, in doing so, he earned himself a unanimous decision victory and became the mandatory challenger for the WBC Featherweight title.
In the post fight discussion of his performance, Diaz felt confident about the victory, “I feel like I had a good performance overall. I was able to put pressure and dictate the pace of the fight, and be able to enter into a lot of exchanges. Rivera is strong, has good body shots, and had good speed. I think we gave them a good show tonight.”, he explained.
Diaz may have made easy work of Rivera, but Gary Russell Jr. is known have the fastest hands in boxing with a shark-like killer instinct.
When asked post fight about facing Russel Jr., a confident Diaz Jr. explained to media that he doesn’t fear Russell Jr. and wants to fight for the title next.
By earning the position of mandatory challenger, Diaz Jr. will now have his chance to seize the WBC world title. A match up with Russell Jr. is a fight that boxing fans willing without a doubt be anxiously awaiting.
Photo by Julio Sanchez/RBRBoxing
