Joel Diaz Warns Khan About Underestimating Julio; Says Hunter Can’t Fix Khan in Time

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Julio Diaz is getting ready to step into the ring with Amir Khan on April 27th in Khan’s backyard of Sheffield, England. The fight will be televised by Showtime as part of a split-site showing with Danny Garcia and Zab Judah on the other end of things in Brooklyn, New York.

This will be Khan’s 2nd outing under the tutelage of Virgil Hunter, who Khan left his longtime trainer Freddie Roach for after suffering 2 losses in a row.

Julio Diaz’s brother/trainer Joel Diaz — trainer of Timothy Bradley — spoke about his thoughts on why Diaz was chosen and why the time is right for his brother to pull the upset.

“There were a lot of opponents mentioned for Khan, but at the time they were not available or interested for whatever reason and it happened that Julio built up his name up after his last 3 fights. [Julio] is giving it another run and I think he’s mentally prepared for the fight,” Diaz said.

Joel was adamant about warning Khan not to underestimate Julio.

“If Khan thinks he’s getting Julio Diaz on the way down then I wish him luck because Julio is going to come strong and I think that night in England is going to be a surprising night.”

When asked whether or not he felt that Hunter can make an impact on Khan in the time they’ve had to work together and leading up to the fight Diaz simply responded, “I don’t think so.” Joel spoke about his time with junior welterweight Omar Figueroa and how it took him 3-4 fights to really start to break ground. Joel says that it takes time to change a fighter for the better and years of doing things a certain way is a difficult thing to alter.

“I’ve had fighters come to me and to change them takes me a while, not in two fights, it takes more than two fights. It could work against him trying to adapt to a different trainer with different tactics. For this one I’m going to have a great plan for Khan, I know him real well. I know what it takes to beat Khan.”