Mexican Super Featherweight Gamaliel Diaz (37-9-2, 17)) looks to make the first defense of his WBC title when he faces the highly rated Japanese challenger Takashi Miura (24-2-2, 18) in Mirua's homeland of Japan.
Although Diaz is on the road for this fight he'll have fond memories of Japan where he is 3-0 as a professional and had his crowning glory last year defeating Takahiro Ao by unanimous decision for his world title. In fact the 32 year old may well feel that Japan is where he has performed the best over his 14 year career with victories not only against Ao but also Naoto Fujiwara and Makoto Uehara (oddly following those victories with a notable defeat of Robert Guerrero).
Although Diaz's record looks like that of a journeyman he actually picked up more than half of his losses in his first 8 bouts as he started his career 3-5 suffering 2 stoppage losses including 1 to Martin Honorio. Since then Diaz has compiled a very respectable 34-4-2 record with losses to Robert Guerrero (who he had already beaten), Humberto Soto, Jorge Linares and Zolani Marali with the last of those coming 4 years ago to Marali. Against those losses Diaz has beaten not only Guerrero and Ao but also Elio Rojas, Cesar Soto and John Carlo Aparicio.
Diaz isn't anything special but on the flip of that he's a fighter who, if he fights to his best can upset special fighters. Sadly for Diaz though he is a fighter who can blow hot and cold and when he's not on form he can make life very difficult for himself and as we've seen several times he can be hurt when tagged hard, in fact of his last 4 losses 3 have come by stoppage with his chin not holding up at world level. Against Miura this could be an issue as the Japanese fighter is a real puncher, though Diaz has got the experience edge and should know how to get around Miura's biggest shots.
Whilst Diaz is well known around boxing circles his Japanese rival is lesser known in the west. Despite his relative obscurity to Western boxing fans Miura is well known to fans of the East thanks in part to his performance against Takashi Uchiyama which saw Uchiyama decked in round 3 before Miura was retired.
At 28 years old Miura is the younger fighter by 4 years in terms of age but is also younger in terms of "boxing years" having had fewer high profile bouts. Despite this Miura is well tested having fought in 7 Japanese title fights (going 5-1-1 in those bouts) and his bout with Uchiyama. Amongst those he has beaten are Yoshimitsu Yashiro, Seiichi Okada and most recently Ryuji Migaki (who was blasted out in 97 seconds). Whilst his only loss, other than the Uchiyama defeat, coming to former WBA Lightweight champion Yusuke Kobori in Miura's first title bout.
Miura is a genuine hard man despite his loss to Uchiyama (arguably the hard puncher in Super Featherweight division) and with his own fire power is a real danger man in the division. Whilst he has thunderous power he can often seem a bit predictable in trying to set up left hand and he seems to lack any sort of attack from his lead hand at times allowing a smart fighter to out boxing him. He can also get frustrated by a fighter who moves away from his left. It's fair to say however you've got to be pretty stupid to move into his straight left.
Due to the power of Miura with his straight left I've got to go with the Japanese catching Diaz at some point and putting him down. I have a feeling that Diaz may get up from a single knock down but be get stopped sooner afterwards.
Prediction-Mirua TKO5
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