Joel Diaz, trainer for Turkish star Avni Yildirim, is getting bombarded with threats over his boxer's crushing defeat at the hands of WBC, WBA super middleweight champion Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez, which took place on February 27th at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Florida.
Yildirim, who had the entire country of Turkey behind him, was dominated from the start of the contest - with Diaz stopping the fight after three rounds to prevent Yildirim from taking further punishment.
Since that contest took place, Turkish fans have attacked Diaz - with many alleging that he was paid off by Canelo's team to sabotage Yildirim's camp.
"There are messages that I have from people in Turkey, where they are telling me that they are going to kill me because I sold out Yildirim, that instead of improving him I made him worse, that everything I did was worse. In fact, they are asking me how much Canelo paid me for putting my fighter in that position. [They say] 'You are Mexican, Canelo is Mexican and we know he paid you a few million dollars to do that to Yildirim,'" Diaz mentioned in an interview with Ernesto Amador.
"I'm not selling myself so they can hurt a fighter. If the boxer wins and looks good, I win and I look good, so I wanted my fighter to shine, so people can say 'what a fight this bastard gave and Joel trained him' - but it is not my fault that the boxer did not pay attention [to my instructions], because he did not do anything that we worked on in training camp."
Yildirim is taking the loss so hard that he does not want to return to Turkey, thinking that he dishonored his country.
"He feels that he has disappointed his homeland and does not want to go back to Turkey. He cried in the bathroom and said nothing," Diaz revealed.
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