Junior featherweight prospect Joel Diaz Jr. (11-0, 10 KOs) was forced to pull out of his ESPN Friday Night Fights’ co-feature bout against Tyler Asselstine due to a wrist injury he suffered during training. The fight was to take place this Friday on a card being held at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
This would have been Diaz’s 2013 debut, but instead he will have to allow time for his injury to heal and then get back to the business of fighting. Still, even with the delay Diaz understands it is something that occurs from time to time and he remains in surprisingly high spirits as he looks forward to his next time out.
Of course, if you saw our preview of this week’s Friday Night Fights card, you would have seen that Diaz wasn’t on there, and that he had been replaced by a different, also unbeaten, opponent. Still, Diaz vs. Asselestine was an intriguing match of high quality prospects, so it’s too abd we’ll be missing out on this.
“It just happened, I couldn’t prevent it and it was just one of those things. I can tell you that if this injury wasn’t so severe I would’ve tried to work through it, but after speaking with my team I’ve realized that it is always best to play it safe when it comes to things like this. I’ll be back, this is a minor setback in the major push I’m looking to make in 2013,” Diaz Jr.
Diaz’s promoter Mario Yagobi of Boxing 360 Promotions was disappointed to hear the news, but understands that it’s part of the game.
“It comes with the territory, Joel is a true warrior and if he’s hurt that means it was unavoidable. I mean you can’t keep track of the postponements caused by injuries because it’s the hazard associated to such a physical sport. I know Joel and he’s only comeback with an undeniable intensity, don’t feel sorry for him, feel sorry for his next opponent,” Yagobi said.
