Thursday, Oct. 12, 2000 | 11:15 a.m.
Dean Juipe's boxing notebook appears Thursday. His sports column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4084.
Antonio Diaz is too good to be a sacrificial lamb.
But is he star quality?
The answer is likely to be apparent Nov. 4 in New York City when Diaz finds himself in the ring with one of the great fighters in the world, Shane Mosley. They're scheduled for 12 rounds with Mosley's World Boxing Council welterweight championship belt -- the one he took from Oscar De La Hoya last June in Los Angeles -- at stake.
"I've read where they just think I'm a tuneup fight for Mosley," Diaz said during a brief stop in Las Vegas this week and a break from his training camp in Big Bear, Calif. "It's good that they think that. It gives me a little more incentive to prove them wrong."
Diaz, 24, is 33-2 with 22 knockouts and is coming off a decision win over Mickey Ward. He also has a significant win over Ivan Robinson in another nationally televised bout.
Mosley is 35-0 with 32 KOs and took this fight with Diaz after a rematch with De La Hoya couldn't be scheduled.
Local oddsmaker Herb Lambeck doesn't like Diaz's chances and has him as a 20-1 underdog, yet the Californian may give a better accounting of himself than some skeptics suspect.
"I consider myself one of the luckiest men in the world," Diaz said. "From out of nowhere I get a title shot and a big fight with Shane Mosley. He's the best, but I also know I have a chance to win.
"You can hit Mosley and I'm not going to back down. I know he has speed, but I don't think he can use it for 12 rounds against me and I think I'll be able to slow him down.
"I've fought all types, so he's not going to surprise me. It's just a matter of putting everything together."
Just as Mosley had to move to 147 pounds to find his most comfortable fighting weight, Diaz has stepped up to welterweight after years at 140 and he likes the change.
"I'm 158 right now," he said. "The most I ever get is 165. It got to where 140 was getting to be a problem, especially from 144 on down. But at 147 I'll be able to eat good and feel fast. I like it better already."
He's in this fight, which will be televised by HBO, in part because De La Hoya isn't available. A Mosley vs. De La Hoya rematch was once tentative for Jan. 20 yet was scrapped when the latter's promotional problems and increasing interest in the music industry interfered.
"They're looking past me," Diaz said with some glee. "But I've proved people wrong about me before and I think I can do it again."
They've become something of a weekly staple on the schedule.
"We've got a contract with them for 43 shows a year," Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said. "It's a marvelous opportunity for us to keep our kids active. With this kind of an outlet, we can have a guy fight 10 times a year."
It's a win-win deal for Top Rank from any perspective.
"We get site fees in certain places, but that's just gravy because we're not in this deal to make money per se," Arum said. "It's the exposure for our fighters that we like, and Univision is thrilled because the ratings are absolutely fabulous."
Arum also said the fact that De La Hoya recently signed with Univision CEO Jerry Perenchio and that he hopes to get out of his contract with Top Rank is not an issue.
"Everyone involved has agreed," Arum said. "No matter what happens with Oscar, our deal with Univision won't be affected."
"That's a disgrace," said veteran amateur coach Doc Broadus of Las Vegas, referring to the lack of a U.S. gold-medal winner. "I could tell by the way they acted, these kids weren't motivated. Someone should have told them that an Olympic gold medal is worth at least $5 million and all the publicity in the world." Taylor, who won the bronze at 156, would seem to agree, telling the Associated Press this week that "I feel hollow. It just kills me that I didn't bring home the gold. That gold means the world."
Taylor and his teammates, however, are currently the subjects of bidding wars of varying degrees of intensity by professional promoters and managers. For what it's worth, Top Rank's Arum said he thought he was going to sign Taylor, Viloria and Williams fairly soon, while Las Vegas' other major promoter, Dan Goossen of America Presents, indicated he was taking a wait-and-see approach.
"Unfortunately, this year's U.S. Olympians didn't get that much exposure on TV and they didn't have any dramatic wins and they didn't produce any gold medalists," Goossen said Wednesday. "In today's climate, it's tough to pay big money for fighters who have these marks going against them.
"Right now, the money they're asking for is way out of whack. The whole purpose of Olympic boxing is to use it as a springboard to the pros, but right now I don't have a comfort level that I can give one of these guys a huge signing bonus and even hope to break even in five years."
Of the U.S. Olympians, Goossen said he had a particular interest in Jaurez and Williams, while Arum's interest is limited to the forementioned trio.
"Those are the only three I have an interest in," Arum said, adding that "we jumped in and signed a few guys that didn't make the Olympic team who should be pretty good."
In that latter group are Marshall Martinez, a lightweight who is already 2-0 as a pro; Steve Luevano, a featherweight who is 4-0; and Kelly Pavlik, a junior middleweight who is 3-0.
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