Joseph Diaz Jr. (31-1-1, 15 KOs) had to settle for a 12 round majority draw against Shavkat Rakhimov (15-0-1, 12 KOs) on Saturday night in their bout at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, California.
The judges had it 115-113 for Joseph Diaz Jr, 114-114, and 114-114. Boxing 247 scored it a draw as well. Neither fighter did enough to deserve the victory tonight, so it was only fitting that it be scored a draw.
The downside of the fight being scored a draw is the IBF 130-lb title is still vacant. We’ll have to see what the International Boxing Federation plans to order to fight for the vacant belt.
With Diaz Jr having come in overweight last Friday at the weigh-in and lost his IBF super featherweight title, the belt was on the line tonight for Rakhimov to fight for, but he failed to win it.
Initially, it looked like Diaz was on his way to winning the contest in the first could f rounds with the way he was taking the fight to the #1 ranked IBF contender Rakhimov.
Diaz’s aggressiveness caused Rakhimov to start unloading on him with blazing fast shots, which he threw in a rapid-fire combination form. Rakhimov got the better of Diaz Jr from the third round until the eighth, and that at that point the Russian fighter faded out.
It’s unclear why Rakhimov stopped throwing punches the way he’d been earlier in the contest, but it appeared that he ran out of gas, which isn’t surprising when you look at his resume.
Rakhimov has a lot of early knockouts. Before tonight, Rakhimov had only gone 12 rounds once during his six-year professional career and that was four years ago against journeyman Emanuel Lopez.
Diaz had his nose bloodied early on, and he looked stressed out from the punches that he was getting hit with by Rakhimov.
In the eighth round, Rakhimov landed a big left-hand shot to the head of Diaz that appeared to shake him up a little. Rakhimov attempted to follow up, but he wasn’t able to land anything big enough to finish him.
