Notebook: Trainer Joel Diaz vows Yildirim will 'shock the world' against Canelo

My new venture, 'ShoBox' tonight, Dirrell-Davis news

Trainer Joel Diaz is talking a good game, insisting that his charge, Avni Yildirim, will shock the world when he challenges pound-for-pound king Canelo Alvarez for his unified super middleweight world title on Feb. 27 (DAZN) at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.

Diaz has been training mandatory challenger Yildirim (21-2, 12 KOs), 29, of Turkey, since October 2019 but due to the coronavirus pandemic the fight against Alvarez (54-1-2, 36 KOs) will be their first together.

“Avni came to Indio (California) and in the first week of training he fell in love with my work,” Diaz said. “He was the happiest guy I’ve ever met because this guy is not only a gym rat and a hard worker, but he’s a smart fighter. He loves learning. A lot of the things he never learned in his career, he’s learned them now, and he loves the work I put in, and it doesn’t matter how hard the work is, he never complains.

“That’s the reason I like Avni. Any trainer would like to have him. He just does what you tell him to do. He’s a true soldier -- you tell him to do something, he just does it. Avni may be an underdog but he doesn’t care what anybody says, he’s fighting for his country and he’s going to shock the world.”

Diaz said in their time together he has been able to re-make Yildirim into a far better fighter than the one who lost a disputed 10th-round technical decision to Anthony Dirrell in his last bout in February 2019 and by third-round knockout to Chris Eubank Jr. in 2017.

“He’s a completely different fighter from when he fought Dirrell and Chris Eubank Jr.,” Diaz said. “I said to him, ‘You are a physically stronger guy than Dirrell but you had no defense.’ That’s why they called him ‘Mr. Robot.’ But there’s no robot in him now, I can tell you. I made a complete transformation because I dedicated time to him. The Covid situation helped him in a way because there was nothing to do, there were no fights, so just to keep him busy we would go to the gym and work on technique and making him a better fighter.”

I’m writing for Ring City USA

I'm happy to announce that I will be a regular contributor to Ring City USA’s editorial efforts. The NBC Sports Net series’ next three cards will take place in Puerto Rico on March 4, March 18 and March 25. So, for my first column I wrote about my favorite memories of fights involving Puerto Rican boxers. You can read it here: https://mailchi.mp/b9dc48bf6f12/boxings-main-attractions-5214936?e=1cca2f980b

‘ShoBox’ tripleheader

Weights from for Wednesday night’s “ShoBox: The New Generation card tripleheader (Showtime, 9 p.m. ET/PT) at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut: Janelson Bocachica 146.5 pounds, Mark Reyes Jr. 147; Vladimir Shishkin 169, Sena Agbeko 168.75; Alejandro Guerrero 135, Abraham Montoya 135.

Ghana native Agbeko (23-1, 18 KOs) will be fighting for the first time since his tragic bout on Jan. 16, 2020 in his adopted hometown of Nashville. Agbeko won an eight-round unanimous decision over Roy King Jr. (12-5-1, 6 KOs) after dropping him four times, but King suffered brain injuries. He suffered two strokes in the hospital and never regained consciousness before finally dying at age 42 last week at a health care facility in New York.

Agbeko addressed the situation this week.

“I was informed on Tuesday that my opponent from my last fight, Roy King, passed away (last) Monday night,” Agbeko said. “It’s unfortunate. Roy is somebody that was doing a lot for his city, Johnson City, in Tennessee. When I met him at the weigh-in, I talked to him and he was very nice. It’s so unfortunate that this happened. I did go to see him in the hospital shortly after our fight and I was expecting him to recover, but unfortunately, he passed away after a year of dealing with it.”

Dirrell-Davis updates

Two-time super middleweight world titlist Anthony Dirrell’s fight with Kyrone Davis, which will headline the Premier Boxing Champions on Fox card on Feb. 27 (8 p.m. ET) at the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall in Los Angeles, will be a WBC semifinal title elimination bout, PBC announced on Tuesday.

The winner will move a step closer to earning a mandatory shot at the WBC belt currently held by unified champion Canelo Alvarez.

Dirrell (33-2-1, 24 KOs), 36, of Flint, Michigan, has not fought since he got knocked out in the ninth round and lost the WBC 168-pound title to David Benavidez in September 2019. Davis (15-2, 6 KOs), 26, of Wilmington, Delaware, whose last fight was in January 2020, has won two fights in a row against lesser opposition since losing a 10-round decision to the late Patrick Day in March 2018.

• Dirrell comment: “It feels good to get back in the ring with everything that’s been going on in the world. Kyrone Davis has fought some good guys but with me being me, he’s biting off a little more than he can chew. Fans can look forward to a knockout on Feb. 27. I’m not playing. I’m going to make a statement.”
  

• Davis comment: “I’ve worked extremely hard and I’m thankful for the opportunity and plan to take full advantage of it. It’s my turn and you’re going to see that on Fox PBC on Feb. 27.”

PBC also announced that 19-year-old welterweight prospect Jesus Ramos (14-0, 13 KOs), of Casa Grande, Arizona, will face Jesus Bojorquez (24-2, 18 KOs), 33, of Mexico, in the 10-round co-feature and 18-year-old welterweight prospect Vito Mielnicki Jr. (7-0, 4 KOs), of Roseland, New Jersey, will face Noe Lopez (10-3-1, 4 KOs), 34, of Mexico, in the eight-round opener.

Quick hits

Junior lightweight titlist Miguel Berchelt (38-1, 34 KOs) and former featherweight titlist Oscar Valdez (28-0, 22 KOs) have submitted to their WBC-mandated seven-day weight checks ahead of Saturday night’s ESPN main event at the MGM Grand conference center in Las Vegas and both were within the allowable limit. Berchelt weighed 133.6 pounds and Valdez was 133.4.

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Junior bantamweight champions Juan Francisco Estrada (41-3, 28 KOs) and Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (50-2, 41 KOs), who meet in a long-awaited rematch to unify their titles on March 13 (DAZN) at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, have submitted to their WBC-mandated 30-day weight checks and both were with in the prescribed limit. Estrada was 124 pounds and Gonzalez was 124.6.

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Former bantamweight titlist Rau’shee Warren will face Sharone Carter in a 10-round bout on the non-televised portion of the Showtime card headlined by Adrien Broner-Jovanie Santiago on Saturday night at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut. Warren (17-3, 4 KOs), 34, of Cincinnati, has not fought since a one-sided 10-round decision win over Gilberto Mendoza last February. Carter (12-3, 3 KOs), 30, of St. Louis, has won three in a row since an eight-round decision loss in August 2018 to Angelo Leo, who went on to win a junior featherweight world title.

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Chris Colbert (15-0, 6 KOs), who holds an interim junior lightweight belt, wants in on bigger fights and wants to fight for a major title but he also has an opponent in mind: former featherweight titlist Shakur Stevenson (15-0, 8 KOs), whose next fight is supposed to be for a junior lightweight title against he winner of the Jamel Herring-Carl Frampton title bout. “He is a bad boy, and me and him would be a hell of a fight,” Colbert said of Stevenson on Brian Custer’s Last Stand podcast. “But I’m going to take that victory, y’all know that! It’s win by any means necessary. I don’t care about looking cute, clean, nothing. It’s win, all I know is win.”

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The WBA has ordered cruiserweight world titlist Arsen Goulamirian (26-0, 18 KOs), 33, of France, to face mandatory challenger Aleksei Egorov (11-0, 7 KOs), 29, of Russia. They have until March 13 to make a deal or a purse bid will be ordered.

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Headlined by Sean McComb (11-0, 5 KOs) and Gavin Gwynne (12-2, 2 KOs) squaring off for the vacant Commonwealth lightweight title, the MTK Global card on Friday will stream live on ESPN+ (2 p.m. ET) from the University of Bolton Stadium in Bolton, England. Five additional bouts are also scheduled to stream, including Samuel Antwi (12-1, 5 KOs) against Darren Tetley (20-1, 9 KOs) in a 10-rounder for the vacant English welterweight title and Top Rank’s Irish welterweight prospect Paddy Donovan (5-0, 3 KOs) against Siar Ozgul (15-5, 3 KOs) in a six-rounder.

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Salita Promotions has signed heavyweight George Arias to a co-promotional deal with Lou DiBella, who already was Arias’ promoter. Arias (15-0, 7 KOs), 29, a Dominican Republic native fighting out of New York, has been idle since October 2019 due to the coronavirus pandemic, but returns to the ring Wednesday night in Uncasville, Connecticut, where he will face Joel Caudle (8-4-2, 5 KOs) in six-rounder on the non-televised portion of Showtime’s “ShoBox” card.

Show and tell

One of my favorite boxing card sets was produced by Kayo in 1991, the height of the so-called “junk wax” era. That is when card companies let the presses roll. And roll. And roll. There are a zillion Kayo cards out there but if you’re a boxing fan it’s a set worth having and inexpensive (around $20). The 250-card set includes a who’s who of all-time greats and top fighters of the time, including Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Salvador Sanchez, Alexis Arguello, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Hector Camacho and many more. The set also includes rookie cards of three future Hall of Famers: Lennox Lewis, Roy Jones Jr. and Arturo Gatti. Besides all of the single cards I have in my collection, several months ago just for the hell of it bought a sealed box. Maybe I will crack it open and maybe not. Here’s the sealed box in my collection.

Yildirim photo: Matchroom Boxing