Joan Guzman

Joan Guzman, born on May 1, 1976, is a former super heavyweight champion from the Dominican Republic. Known to his fans as “Little Tyson” and “The Sycuan Warrior”, Guzman started boxing at the young age of 8 and enjoyed a relatively successful boxing career as an amateur before moving to the big boys’ club of boxing in 1997, when he fought his first professional fight in Phoenix, Arizona. This first fight turned out to be a knock-out win, one which he immediately followed with another KO at the Madison Square Garden in New York before he returned to his native country. This 32-year-old super featherweight is currently being coached by former boxer Floyd Mayweather, Sr.

His first boxing match in his country came on March 11, 1999, after he took two years off to train and to drop off weight to switch to the super bantamweight division from the featherweight division. He won the match against Orlando Mateo after 8 rounds, and he went on to fight six more matches before he was given a chance to try for the Dominican featherweight title.

He won the national title in 1999 after knocking out Francisco de Leon in round 11. He successfully defended the title against Santiago Matos. Later, in August 2001 he knocked out Hector Avila to bag the NABO regional super bantamweight title.

Guzman won the vacant WBO world’s super bantamweight title on August 17, 2002 after a match against Fabio Oliva that lasted 3 rounds and ended in a KO. He then faced Agapito Sanchez, who held the title. The Dominican successfully defended his title from Sanchez on February 26, 2004 in San Diego, California in a match that lasted seven rounds and ended with a KO from Guzman. He again defended this title from Fernando Beltran in April 2005.

After his victory over Beltran, Guzman moved to the super featherweight division. He won the WBO super featherweight title in 2006 after then holder Jorge Barrios was deemed overweight and stripped of the title. Guzman successfully defended this title twice in 2006 and 2007 before he vacated this position to move to the lightweight division. He was then scheduled to fight for Nate Campbell’s unified WBA super, WBO and IBF titles on September 18, 2008. Unfortunately, the fight was cancelled because Guzman came over the 135 lb limit. A few hours after the weigh-in, Guzman was rushed to the hospital after coughing blood in his hotel room, and was later pronounced not fit to fight.