Joseph Diaz boxes for the third time in 2024 tonight, and despite two losses his fortunes have already been reversed.
Diaz has been in recovery at the WhiteSands Treatment Center in Florida, and this evening boxes nearby at the Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee on ProBox TV in an important 10-round clash against Abraham Montoya.
Diaz is 33-6-1 (15 KOs) and coming off defetas to Oscar Duarte and Jesus Campos while Montoya has won 22, lost six and drawn once, with 14 early wins.
The fight has been made at 138lbs
“Jojo’s fight is dangerous,” said Garry Jonas, owner of WhiteSands, Probox TV and BoxingScene. “If four months in rehab at his training camp, sequestered away don’t the outside world doesn’t get him right, then the damage done was just too much. And regardless he’s already won by submitting to my demands. Whether he understands it or not, Jojo’s won big before the fight even starts. He’s winning the first round of the rest of his life and that’s far more important than boxing for a 31-year-old man.“
Diaz is a former 2012 Olympian and former champion at junior lightweight and said his preparation has been the best of his career.
Fuelled by recovery, Diaz believes he has turned the page on a life that has seen real controversy over a number of flashpoints, but the South California-born product told BoxingScene’s Kieran Mulvaney in a gripping interview: ““I started getting bombarded with issues in my personal life and, you know, the lust of success: being in the crowd, going to nightclubs, buying bottle service, being the life of the party,” he recalls. “That’s when it really became a problem. And it got to the point where I started needing alcohol to live, to actually function. I got to a point where I was drinking every single day just to calm my nerves, just to act normal, just to feel normal.”