Gary Russell, Jr. retained the WBC Featherweight title with a 12-round unanimous decision over Joseph Diaz at the MGM National Harbor in National Harbor, Maryland.
Russell used his jab and handspeed to keep the charging Diaz. Diaz landed some nice punches early, but it was the ring generalship of Russell that was the difference of the fight. The landed a similar amount of punches (199-192 in Russell’s favor), but Russell threw 500 more punches, and he won by scores of 117-111 twice and 115-113.
Russell, 125.5 lbs of Washington, DC is 29-1. Diaz, 126 lbs of South El Monte, CA is 27-2.
“We train to survive those body shots,” said Russell Jr. “We put the work in every day in the ring. We consistently grind and push ourselves to be great and we push ourselves to the limit.
“I was disappointed in my performance because I wasn’t planning on going the distance. I hurt the right hand, but I still had to use it, because he could not get past my jab.”
“The game plan was to break him down with the body shots and start attacking him more in the later rounds,” said the South El Monte, Calif. native. “But I started attacking him too late and didn’t pick it up until the 8th or 9th round. Gary Russell Jr. is a tremendous fighter and he did a great job keeping me at bay.”
“This will just make me a hungrier fighter. I hope I got the respect of a lot of fight fans. I wanted to become champion against the best featherweight fighter in the world. Tonight wasn’t my night but I’m going to bounce back harder and I’ll be champion soon.”
