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player ready...David Diaz took a gamble last week at Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, Conn. Now the Chicago junior welterweight contender must regroup after the first loss his nine-year, 27-fight pro career.
“This is part of our game, and I accept that you can’t cry over spilled milk,” Diaz said of his technical-knockout loss to Kendall Holt.
Diaz, 28, said he took the fight as a chance to showcase his talents on Showtime, “but it didn’t pay off the way we wanted it to.”
The bout started badly for the Chicagoan, who was knocked down in the first round. He rallied and floored Holt in the seventh but was far enough behind on all three judges’ scorecards that he needed more knockdowns or a knockout to win in the 10-rounder.
“I was catching up to him,” said Diaz, the aggressor against a counterpuncher. “He couldn’t run anymore.”
Instead, Holt caught him with a flurry of right hands, enough to persuade referee Charles Dwyer to stop the fight in the final minute of the eighth round despite Diaz’s protests.
“It was a little bump in my road, but it’s still paved with gold,” said Diaz, who plans to be back in the ring within three months. But he and his corner intend for him to resume his career as a 135-pound lightweight rather than in the 140-pound junior welterweight division.
With 18 victories in 19 bouts, Holt can appreciate the comeback Diaz must forge. Last June at Chicago’s DePaul Athletic Center, Holt suffered an embarrassing first-round knockout by Thomas Davis.
Also on the Connecticut card, fellow Chicago junior welterweight Al Gonzales lost a close but unanimous decision to Oscar Diaz, who improved to 17-1-1. Gonzales is 18-2.
New approach a winner
Zab Judah, impatient for most of his nine years as a professional boxer, finally has learned that good things come to those who wait. A veteran of 35 fights at 28, Judah made the most of his second chance with a technical knockout of Cory Spinks on Saturday night. He wore down the slick defensive champion for most of nine rounds, then dropped him with a left to the head and kept him in deep trouble after he rose.
Unlike their April matchup, in which Spinks built an early lead and won despite being floored in the final round, Judah was busy from the outset. He focused on landing body shots in the early going.
“Hunger and determination were the difference in this fight,” said Judah, the new welterweight champ.
Judah conceded he had taken a “big risk” moving up from 140 pounds to challenge the 147-pound champion. He also settled for short money, getting $100,000 to Spinks’ $1.2 million.
Judah burst onto the boxing scene in 1996 and sped to the top of the junior welterweights, winning a world title within three years.
Maybe it all came too quickly. In his biggest fight, against veteran champion Kostya Tszyu in Las Vegas in 2001, Judah surprised Tszyu with his speed in the first round, then disappointed himself with that same jitterbug quickness late in the second.
After Tszyu dropped him with a powerful right to the jaw, Judah bounced back onto his feet. But he was still dazed, and he wobbled back to the canvas, prompting referee Jay Nady to stop the bout. An angry Judah threw his corner stool and pushed the referee, drawing a six-month suspension from the Nevada Athletic Commission.
But at St. Louis’ Savvis Center before 22,370 fans, the largest boxing crowd at an indoor arena other than a domed stadium, Judah pushed all that disappointment into a past he’d just as soon forget.