Hot on the heels of the news that unbeaten stars Gervonta Davis and Rolando Romero are to face one another on December 5 comes news from ESPN.com that Ryan Garcia will square off with Jo Jo Diaz a week or so earlier, on November 27th.
The unbeaten lightweight star will face Diaz, who is potentially his toughest test to date, in Los Angeles.
Both Garcia, 21-0(18), and Diaz, 32-1-1(15) are predicting a KO win. Garcia, who was forced to take some time off not too long after his up-from-the-floor stoppage win over Luke Campbell in January, this for reasons pertaining to Garcia’s mental health, says he will do away with Diaz somewhere between “three and five rounds.”
Diaz is coming off a big win over Javier Fortuna, who Garcia was supposed to fight in July, with Diaz stepping in at short notice.
Diaz says he believes 23-year-old Garcia is all hype, and he says he will stop Garcia in November – “I’m ending the hype train once and for all,” he said.
This is a great match-up, and it should indeed tell us a lot more about Garcia and how far he can go in the sport at an elite level. Southpaw Diaz, who at age 28 is five years the older man than Garcia, has never been stopped (his sole loss coming on points to Gary Russell Jr back in May of 2018, this down at 126 pounds), and the former WBA feather and former IBF super-featherweight champ looked good in beating Fortuna in a fight that contested the WBC interim belt at 135 pounds.
Garcia, who was knocked down quite heavily by Campbell, has a fair bit to prove in this fight, in the opinion of some fans at least. Can he do it? Garcia says his taking this fight “ends questions If I was scared to fight Fortuna,” and he also says he is excited to be back. We fans are excited about this fight. Credit to both men for making a deal.
Diaz has been in with the better quality of opposition (his draw came against Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov, this one fight prior to Diaz’s win over Fortuna). Yet, some experts feel Garcia could be the best young and unbeaten lower-weight fighter out there.