JULIO DIAZ vs DAVID TORRES

REVISED PREVIEW, PLUS TUESDAY EVENING UPDATE: Former lightweight champion Julio Diaz is back in the ring on Wednesday Night Fights, eight months after being overwhelmed by Juan “Baby Bull” Diaz. His opponent will be another “little bull” — the undefeated David “El Torito” Torres.

This is seen by Diaz's promoter, Sycuan Ringside Promotions, as the first step back on the road to another title fight.

I originally thought that Diaz would take that first step in his stride, even though Torres is a tough, busy, unbeaten fighter. Now I am not at all sure.

It concerned me that Diaz was unable to make the match weight of 138 pounds today. My understanding is that he tried to shift weight but could get no lower than 139.2 pounds. He will pay a forfeit to Torres, who came in comfortably under the limit at 136.

Diaz's older brother Joel, who trains him, assured me in a phone conversation on Monday that Julio will be back to his best, showing, as he put it, "beautiful footwork, beautiful combinations".

Maybe he will. Maybe he will outclass the less-experienced Torres (and, on paper, that is what should happen).

It always worries me, though, when a fighter fails to make weight.

On Wednesday Night Fights last week we saw Roger "Speedy" Gonzalez, poised for victory, unable to keep up with the strong, fast fighting of Cornelius Lock in the last two rounds — Gonzalez had failed to make weight.

To me, struggles at the scales are always a bad sign.

Now, it must be pointed out that sometimes a boxer who doesn't make the weight has a strength advantage in the fight. We saw this, for instance, when Rosendo Alvarez beat Beibis Mendoza at Madison Square Garden and, dramatically, when Jose Luis Castillo knocked out Diego Corrales in their rematch.

Sometimes, though, the boxer who fails to make weight gives a pathetic performance — such as Hector Camacho Jr. losing a winnable fight to Omar Weis and Mike Anchondo collapsing in four rounds against Jorge Barrios.

I was unsuccessful in contacting Joel Diaz today, but he did tell me on Monday that everything had gone well in training, that Julio's weight was under control. "You’re going to see a new Julio Diaz, back to the way he used to be,” was how Joel put it — and, once more, maybe we will.

Even before the weigh-in, though, I was thinking that Diaz would have to be at his best to win, that a sub-standard effort probably would not get the job done.

Torres, a 30-year-old from Othello, WA, is a game, very willing, pressure fighter. He has won 20 consecutive bouts and has been seeking a breakout type of fight for the past year or so. I had the chance to see him fight when Azteca America was televising boxing shows from around the U.S. He is an all-action type of fighter, strong and thickset, with a confident look about him.

His promoter, Brian Halquist, said over the phone from Beverly Hills today: "We liked our chances before the weigh-in and we really like them now. David's improved so much. He has a new manager, Saul Rodriguez, who lives in Chicago, and David had a six-week training camp in Chicago and them six weeks in Las Vegas, and he's got a new trainer, Steve Rowland. Steve told me he never knew that David had this much ability. David's had the best sparring of his life and he's been working with a nutritionist — making 136 was easy for him."

Surely we are not going to see yet another ESPN upset? I have a funny feeling that it is starting to look that way.

Diaz’s inactivity — three fights in two years — concerns me, as does the fact that he was stopped in his last fight, and he is going to be in the ring with someone who will be trying to push him back and swarm all over him.

They say that class tells, though, and Diaz at his best would have to be considered a class above Torres. Can he still produce the sort of boxing and punching that he showed in his prime-performance fights, though? Has he made the mistake of looking past the little-known Torres?

The weigh-in has put a real doubt in my mind. Diaz's boxing ability and big-fight seasoning, plus height and reach advantages, make him the clear favourite, still, but Torres seems to be in the best shape of his life and is coming to throw everything he has at the former champion and a little voice is telling me that that the ESPN upset trend has a very good chance of continuing.