DOCTOR Pedro Diaz tells a good story about Miguel Cotto. Puerto Rican fighting legend Cotto was reckoned to be on the slide when he went to work with Miami-based Cuban Diaz who was better known as the coach of the Cuba amateur team back then.
“When I started with Miguel nobody trusted him any more,” Diaz told The Irish News.
“But the two best fights of his life were with me: Margarito II (a stunning rematch win for Cotto in 2011) and Floyd Mayweather (a brilliant performance against the pound-for-pound genius in 2012).”
As soon as they began working together at the Mundo Boxing Gym (mundoboxing.com), Diaz took Cotto on a programme of weights, strength, endurance, speed on the track and in the ring and spent hours refining and adjusting his technique. The end result was a faster, stronger and more competitive fighter who went on to become middleweight champion before he eventually hung up his gloves as a four-weight king.
The mission for Diaz is to turn Michael Conlan from a nearly-man into a champion.
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“I believe in Conlan,” he said.
“But the first thing is that Conlan believes in Conlan, that’s the important thing. He has motivation, he has his mind focussed on the future and the rest is hard work.”
Conlan linked up with Diaz after travelling to Miami on a fact-finding mission last month. After a trial period he found he worked well with the astute coach who has trained 20 world champions in his Mundo Boxing Gym.
As well as Cotto, he has propelled Vasyl Lomachenko, Guillermo Rigondeaux and China’s former featherweight champ to success at the highest level and has been following Conlan’s career with interest since the Clonard native burst onto the boxing scene at the Beijing Olympic Games.
“I’ve followed his career since then and we’re working now on some of the mistakes that he has made in the past in a tactical sense,” he said.
“But what happened in the past is the past; we want to focus on the present and the future. What happened before with other coaches is history. I respect all the coaches who have worked with him but this is a new moment for Conlan.”
Conlan came within a whisker of becoming world champion when he pushed Leigh Wood to the brink in Nottingham last year. Lion-hearted Wood produced the finish of his life to get out of jail in a terrific fight and Conlan will have Diaz in his corner for the first time when he returns to the ring against Wood’s friend Jordan Gill, a former European featherweight champion, in Belfast on December 2.
Diaz says his mission now – and the mission of everyone in the team – is to give Conlan the final push he needs to get over the line in a world title fight. Nothing will be left to chance by the meticulous coach who, after training each week, holds a debrief to identify areas where he can improve going forward.
“Michael has great feet, he’s very focussed on training and he does every round like a true warrior,” he said.
“We’re going to try and adjust some things and you’ll see his new version. Thanks to all the coaches who worked with him in the past who took him to where he is today with their effort and time and now for us the job is to take him one more step. We want him to obtain his goal to become a world champion.
“That is the team mission. Michael has a great family team, a great manager in his brother Jamie and he has a huge, fanatical support and so many people backing him up. Right now, he has the best motivation and he is looking forward to presenting himself as a new version to the world.”
The SSE Arena fight night is Diaz’s second visit to Belfast. His first was as a coach with the Cuba team for the 2001 World Championships when Cuba topped the medals table with seven gold and two bronze in the tournament.
“It’ll be my great honour to be back in Belfast,” he said.
“I was there for the World Championships and I consider Belfast as one of the great boxing cities in the world and I want to say: ‘Hello’ to all the boxing fans in Belfast.”
ARMAGH middleweight Fearghus Quinn is in action in Dorchester, Massachusetts on Saturday night against dangerous Brazilian puncher Alex Sandro Duarte. Unbeaten Galway welterweight prospect Kieran Molloy (6-0) will take on Daniel Sostre in the Freeport Hall bill.
Belleek native Quinn (7-0) has been confirmed for the SSE Arena fight night on December 2. Quinn will box a six-rounder on the night, while English light-middleweight Georgia O’Connor is scheduled for four-rounder.
Also confirmed for December 2 are Gerard Hughes and Rudy Farrell who will be the second all-Belfast battle on the show.
Michael Conlan will take on Jordan Gill back on home soil with new coach Dr Pedro Diaz in his corner on a star-studded bill that includes several fights that could be the headline act in their own right.
Chief among those is the east-versus-west welterweight battle of Tyrone McKenna and Lewis Crocker. Meanwhile, Caoimhin Agyarko fights in his native city for only the second time as a professional. ‘Black Thunder’ takes on Troy Williamson (20-1-1) and ‘Public Nuisance’ Sean McComb is up against former British and Commonwealth champion and world title challenger Sam Maxwell.
