As much of a shock it was to the boxing world, it appears it was equally surprising to Joel Diaz that Tim Bradley decided to let him go as a trainer. In this video interview with FightHype, Diaz says he didn't expect to get the news that Bradley was firing him after so many good years together, but he just has to move on with his career as best as possible.
"It just caught me off guard, you know, that I put in so much time, so much work with him...we built this together," said Diaz.
Diaz went on to say that he's going to use this unexpected firing as motivation to continue his career as a trainer and that he has a good stable of young fighters he's looking forward to continue working with. As far as Bradley citing concerns that Diaz would leave his camp for a day or two to work with other fighters, Diaz says that just the nature of the business and that he has responsibilities to other fighters, even though he always made Bradley his top priority. He just attributes the whole situation to people around Bradley putting things in his head.
Joel was then asked if he would be willing to go back to working with Bradley if his next training situation doesn't work out and Bradley wants to reunite. Diaz responded by saying no, they've reached a point of no return. Specifically, Diaz says he was deeply offended after the Vargas fight when Bradley questioned whether or not he trained him in a good way or if he just did it for a paycheck. For Bradley to question his integrity after more than10 years together, Diaz says he just can't get over that. He insists that Bradley should go back and revisit that fight and he'll see that every instruction he gave him in the corner was designed to get Bradley a win, and if he was just in it for the check he would have been indifferent.
It's clear that the two men are trying their best to be publicly respectful to one another after being so close for so long - but it's also abundantly clear that there are some hard feelings on both sides.