Canelo vs Jacobs: Joseph Diaz Jr hoping to face Scott Quigg on undercard

About a month ago, we mentioned that Eddie Hearn had reached out to Golden Boy hoping to make a fight between Scott Quigg and Joseph Diaz Jr.

At that time, Diaz was just about to face Charles Huerta on the Machado-Cancio undercard. Diaz got the job done against Huerta, winning a wide 10-round decision in his official move up to 130 pounds.

Now, Diaz is the one hoping to get a Quigg fight done, and he wants it to happen on the May 4 Canelo-Jacobs undercard, which will of course stream on DAZN.

Diaz (28-1, 14 KO) tells The Ring that he wants a big opponent for May 4, and that Quigg fits the bill:

“I got the call from Golden Boy Promotions and my manager about possibly fighting on the Canelo undercard and I am ready to go. I wanted to fight Andrew Cancio for his title but he has a rematch clause against Alberto Machado, so the next best opponent for me would definitely be Scott Quigg.”

Diaz moved up to 130 after missing weight for a WBA “world” title fight with Jesus Rojas last August. He beat Rojas by decision, but under WBA rules Rojas kept the belt. That followed Diaz losing a WBC featherweight title fight to Gary Russell Jr in May 2018.

Quigg (35-2-2, 26 KO) is a former super bantamweight titleholder who has also had some weight issues forcing him up recently. After losing a 122-pound unification fight to Carl Frampton in 2016, Quigg moved up to 126 and became a contender there, maneuvering into a WBO title fight against Oscar Valdez in March 2018.

Quigg missed weight — by a good amount — but the fight went on anyway. It was a brutal war, one of the most violently entertaining fights of the year, resulting in a broken jaw for the victorious Valdez and a broken nose for Quigg.

Quigg returned in October, moving up to super featherweight and beating Mario Briones. The last we’d heard about Quigg, he was gearing up to fight April 26 on the Srisaket-Estrada II undercard in California. As of this afternoon, he’s still being advertised on that bill by Matchroom, but BoxRec no longer have him listed for the show. That may mean nothing, or it may mean something.

Both Quigg, 30, and Diaz, 26, could use a big fight right now, and the Canelo-Jacobs card could use some attractive undercard matchups, too. All we’ve heard about that is that Vergil Ortiz Jr and Bilal Akkawy will probably be on the show. We’re certainly not going to get any blockbuster fights for that undercard, but a Diaz-Quigg matchup would be a nice addition, and the sort of thing that’s on par for a “good” major card undercard in recent years.