Joey Giardello vs. Gil Diaz

Joey Giardello 163 lbs beat Gil Diaz 160 lbs by PTS in round 10 of 10

• Date: 1965-04-23
• Location: Arena, Cherry Hill, New Jersey, USA
• Referee: Harold Valan 8-2

"Middleweight champion Joey Giardello, fighting for charity, planned an easy fight for five rounds and then hoped to put his opponent, Gil Diaz, away for the night. Giardello came out of the 10-round non-title fight Friday night with the decision but injure an elbow in so doing. The exact nature of the elbow injury won't be determined until X-Rays are taken Saturday, but Giardello had his arm taped and put in cold packs before leaving the arena. Dr. Harry Haltzman, commission physician, said it could be a recurrence of a chipped fracture Giardello suffered in 1961. Joey was content to counter-punch against his foe from Brooklyn, and it earned him a score of 8-2 from the scoreboard of the lone official, referee Harold Valan. There were no knockdowns." -Associated Press

• Giardello's personal physician Dr. Alex Minniti, upon reviewing the X-Rays, stated that Giardello had an osteo-arthritic condition and he aggravated the elbow in his bout with Diaz.
• The injury canceled Joey's May 15th non-title bout with Florentino Fernandez in Puerto Rico and sidelined him for 6 months.
• The charity event was for the Camden County, N.J., mental retardation welfare group.
• This bout was originally scheduled for April 5th, but promoter Jimmy Riggio postponed it a day to the 6th in order to allow the Kennedy family - who were big supporters of special needs - to attend the card. However, Riggio finally had to reschedule the card to April 23rd when, on March 15th, Giardello suffered a cut lip in sparring and was forced to suspend training until the injury healed.