Joe Diaz & “Yory Boy” Campas
BOXING MEDIA & GOVERNMENT SHUNNED RESPONSIBILITY
San Francisco, CA– Having known New Jersey native Joe Diaz for a decade now, I have to tell you this 74-year old boxing trainer who ran the Top Level Gym in Phoenix, AZ for more than 15 years is quite a man. The gym is now shuttered and Diaz has relocated and with a new gym in Montana. There is a plethora of reasons as to why this man deserves accolades, but first up the intestinal fortitude that this David-like character has displayed in a battle against a number of Goliath-like entities is quite telling.
BOXING COMMISSION BRUTALIZED DIAZ
Diaz got nothing in the way of action from the Arizona Athletic Commission after Top Rank agent and promoter Peter McKinn bounced a $5,000 check to boxer Ramon “Yory Boy” Campas in early 2004. The check issue was put before John Montano, Athletic Commission Director and Mary Rose Wilcox, the scandal-ridden Maricopa County Supervisor who was the Boxing Commission Chairperson at the time and they did nothing in almost a year.
ENTER THE PHOENIX POLICE HANDWRITING EXPERT!
So Diaz took his case to the Phoenix Police in January 2005 when Peter McKinn closed the bank account that the bad check was drawn on. With the case about to be heard by Judge Mendoza of Phoenix, Earl Wilcox, Mary Rose’s hubby, but more importantly an aide to then Governor Janet Napolitano, walked defendant Peter McKinn into the “private” chambers of Judge Mendoza in an attempt to persuade the judge to “throw the case out.” Mendoza refused and had the men jettisoned from his office.
IMAGINE BEING CALLED A LIAR/CROOK & YOU WERE NOT?
For years, Diaz was called a “liar.” You see, Peter McKinn was Top Rank czar Bob Arum’s guy in Arizona, a man who all but controlled Arizona boxing promotions. The “Ruin Joe Diaz” campaign was kicked into high gear and it’s effectiveness intensified when two years into the case, yes two years, McKinn produced a $5,000 cash receipt that was signed, “Joe Diaz.” But handwriting experts and the Phoenix Police said Joe’s signature was a forgery.
TOP RANK’S MCKINN GETS JAIL TIME FOR “FORGED RECEIPT”
When one of his guys turned on Peter McKinn and wore a wire, namely Gabe Esqueda, told police that McKinn had produced the forged receipt that was in their possession. McKinn was then arrested with TV Media types covering the arrest. But when McKinn admitted being guilty, there was NO mention of it in the media other than this boxing website and Phoenix investigative reporter Linda Bentley of the Sonoran News.
BOXING MOB CONTROLS MEDIA WITH PASSES & SPONSORSHIPS!
After years of being ridiculed and being called dishonest, Diaz was cleared as McKinn went to jail. But the power of Mary Rose Wilcox, her husband Earl, the Governor’s aide, and Governor Napolitano herself, yes the former Director of Homeland Security under President Obama was sent dozens of letters from Diaz, some hand delivered, others sent via a form of registered mail and some of my articles. Yet, we never even got a response.
MCKINN HAS COPS GRAB PEDRO FOR “ROBBERY”
While picketing in front of the Governor’s office in a suit and tie on an early summer morning, Peter McKinn called the Arizona State Police and said he had “Just witnessed a robbery.” With McKinn describing me down to the color of my tailored suit, Arizona State Police arrived, accosted and then detained me for some 20 minutes for “Suspicion of Robbery,” this after I paid off two drunk “shills” that McKinn had hired to act as a counter protest and they left. Police detained me until I told them, “Arrest me or go to hell.” I was then allowed to resume my picketing.
BLACK BALLED, RUINED FINANCIALLY
With no license to train fighters, fighters not being able to work with him because of the “indefinite suspension,” Joe’s life and livelihood were taken away, this from a man in his late 60s who had been training fighters in Arizona since 1995. At the weigh in for another Arizona promotion not affiliated with McKinn and Top Rank on July 5, 2005, John Montano of the Commission took away both the licenses of Diaz and Campas.
CAMPAS STILL HAD SOME MILES LEFT ON HIM
Then 33, “Yory Boy” Campas who had been “raped” financially by Top Rank years earlier, was given back his license sans any apology from the Arizona Commission in 2006, while Diaz was “suspended” until 2010. Diaz had to take “Yory Boy” Campas to Mexico, as well as other fighters some 19 times. All the while his legal bills, investigator fees, handwriting expert, etc. were piling up, Diaz who couldn’t make a dime in boxing was forced to return to the hard labor position of plumber after his gym turned into a ghost town. Said Diaz, “I have to eat.”
“RUIN JOE DIAZ” PLAN NEARLY KILLED JOE DIAZ!
After a forced return to hard labor and a 4 AM shift start, Joe Diaz, then 72 years old, suffered a massive heart attack and lapsed into unconsciousness at the gym. Lucky for Diaz, two people saw him hit the floor and they dialed 911 while administering CPR. For 41 days Joe Diaz was in a coma.
“RUIN JOE DIAZ” PLAN KILLED JOE DIAZ’S MOM!
In the meantime, Joe’s mother Carmen Diaz and sister Rosie came from New Jersey to Phoenix. Carmen, Joe and Rosie’s mom was “old school” and shunned spending what she deemed was unnecessary money. Thus she demanded to walk places in the triple digit Phoenix heat even at her advanced age. That heat, the fact that she she saw her son of life support for weeks, this weakened Carmen Diaz and she died in another Phoenix hospital, something sister Rosie kept from Joe for weeks after he awoke from the coma. Before her death and while Joe was in that coma, mother Carmen sung him Happy Birthday for the last time before passing a couple of weeks later.
COVER UP WORSE THAN THE CRIME
For some of you, a lot of this you already know from reading myself or Linda Bentley. But the majority of you are thinking that there’s no way Bob Arum, or agents of Bob Arum’s Top Rank would go to such lengths, entering into a massive conspiracy, forging documents, asking crooked politicos for “juice,” controlling the media, but that is exactly what occurred. Forgery, Perjury, Fraud, Conspiracy, these crimes were all an attempt to to ruin the life of Joe Diaz, a man with seemingly unparalleled intestinal fortitude.
TOP RANK AGENT’S MAFIA MOVES ALMOST WORKED
They ruined Diaz financially, now several hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, almost killed him, helped push his mother into the ground, all the result of the smear campaign McKinn, Top Rank, others, and the always disheveled looking ex-Arizona Republic boxing writer Norm Frauenheim perpetrated. It was Frauenheim’s work for the Top Rank machine, rumored free junkets with alleged drugs and broads, that kept this case out of the national media as he buried allegation after allegation from Diaz, ALL of which turned out to be true!
BOXING MEDIA (FIGHT NEWS) IGNORED PLEAS FOR AID!
All the crap Diaz has been through and he’s still punching at 74. I’m sorry that Fight News and Karl Freitag refused to run the story especially after Top Rank’s McKinn admitted guilt to a number of crimes of which trainer Joe Diaz and boxer “Yory Boy” Campas were “victims.” The fact that they have never run a note on this subject in light of a criminal conviction is an indictment not only of Freitag, but the boxing media as a whole as they are seemingly “bought and paid for” whores!
JOE DIAZ: BOXING MAN OF THE DECADE!
With a date before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals set for Valentines Day 2014 in San Francisco, Diaz is going after the aforementioned gangsters and others with Edward Moriarity of US Supreme Court fame being his attorney. Win or lose, nobody has stood up for what’s right in boxing more than Joe Diaz has for the last decade. After reading all of the above how can you not realize that this man who fights for the good of boxing is the “Boxing Man of The Decade!”
CONGRATS TO JOE & CAUTION TO FOES!
While the sometimes bombastic Diaz is currently on “cruise control” in Three Forks, Montana, people mentioned in FBI tapes recorded in the Top Rank office, Bruce Trampler, Cameron Dunkin, Sean Gibbons and others, they might not like hearing themselves admit to things. Backstabbing, drugs, booze, fixed fights, broads, fraudulent medical exams, plots to screw fighters out of their earnings, if Top Rank is willing to let all of that come above board to the public through the court, then I guess Bob Arum didn’t learn shit at Harvard!
Pedro Fernandez