Fresh off of becoming the WBO world strawweight champion, Oscar Collazo looks to make his first title defense.
Collazo defends the title against Garen Diagan on Saturay night, and live on DAZN at 8 p.m. ET, at the Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Collazo (7-0, 5 KOs) captured the championship after defeating Melvin Jerusalem in May. Meanwhile, Diagan (10-3, 5 KOs) defeated Huu Toan Le this past March in Vietnam.
With the stakes so high in this world title fight, DAZN lists the keys to victory for both fighters.
Garen Diagan's keys to victory
Turn the volume up
A look at Garen Diagan's work against Huu Toan Le and you'll see how he sits on his punches to leverage the most devastation possible with each blow. Well, against the champion, he should stick with what earned him this title shot, but he must turn the volume up and let his hands fly a bit more.
Drowning Collazo out with enough punches that damages or even touches the champ consistently and it could spell another points victory for Diagan. More importantly, it could garner a brand new world champion.
Time counterpunches
Many times when Toan Le got overzealous in their bout, Diagan would shift the momentum with one well-timed, stiff counterpunch.
Diagan's patience in the pocket and counterpunching ability could be pivotal against a momentum puncher like Collazo. As the champion picks up steam piecing his punches together, Diagan should look for just the right moment to unleash something that could possibly turn the tide of the fight.
Put together combinations upstairs
Collazo has a tendency to drop his gloves by his midsection while computing information and looking to assert his offense. It's these sequences where Diagan can start slicing upstairs with combinations to have the champion reeling. Doing this effectively could have Diagan exiting Puerto Rico as a new world champ.
Oscar Collazo's keys to victory
Raise a higher, tighter guard
As aforementioned, Oscar Collazo far too often let's his hands drop nearly to his waist as he looks for his next set of punches to unleash. The champion would be wise to raise that guard and make it tighter against a stiff puncher like Diagan.
Attack the body
Collazo's ability to rip the body not only dramatically turned the tide of his fight with Melvin Jerusalem, it made the Puerto Rican the new WBO world strawweight champion.
Collazo does an excellent job of absolutely sitting on these body punches to maximize their force and Diagan's body could be open for such debilitating shots in this title fight.
Take educated chances with left hand
As Collazo begins to have success with those body punches, he should take chances upstairs with that sweeping left hand and uppercut.
After all, those body punches may be just the pounding that forces Diagan to lower his guard. If and when he does that, the southpaw needs to make him pay with a left across the jaw or an uppercut splitting through the guard.