Before he faced lightweight champion Diego Corrales on Saturday night, Jose Luis Castillo had vowed to knock out Corrales and bring Corrales’ two title belts home to his native Mexico.
It was assumed if Castillo kept his first promise, which he did with a devastating fourth-round knockout, the second would follow. But boxing pulses with the unexpected. And Castillo found a way–make that a weigh-in–to take down Corrales without taking his World Boxing Council and World Boxing Organization titles.
Castillo could not make the required weight Friday for a 135-pound title fight, forcing negotiations that reduced the matchup to a non-title bout. Because he and Corrales each have knocked the other out once this year, a third fight between them seems a sure bet.
Each fighter has said he wants it. Corrales did so by immediately invoking a rematch clause in their fight contract.
Two big questions after Saturday’s rematch of their May 7 bout, regarded as one of the best in boxing history, are whether either of these combatants can make 135 pounds again and whether fight fans now believe Castillo has Corrales’ number. He floored him twice and nearly knocked him out in their first fight and left no doubt Saturday.
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“I knew he wasn’t getting up,” Castillo said of the perfect left hook that dropped Corrales for the 10-count and an agonizing twist from his back to his knees to his feet that left him staggering into the ropes.
At the outset, with the 18,000-seat Thomas & Mack Center about two-thirds full of screaming, excited fans, the opponents came at each other with the same “fight in a phone booth” mentality that made their May 7 encounter a mauling marathon.
But by the second round, it became clear this would not have the same give-and-take as their first battle. Castillo, scoring with uppercuts and rocking Corrales with a stiff right in the third round, was giving most of the pain. Forty-seven seconds into the fourth, Corrales took more than his no-quit courage could handle.
Soon after Castillo’s short, pinpoint left flush on the jaw ended it before a cheering partisan crowd, he faced reporters and said the victory left him both happy and sad.
The reason for joy had just come in the ring. The reason for sadness had come Friday on an outdoor stage in front of Caesars Palace hotel. That is where Castillo failed three times to make the required 135-pound weight limit.
Promoters and Nevada boxing officials scrambled to save the bout, a multimillion-dollar rematch feeding off the positive vibes of the May 7 classic. Not wanting to chance a delay that could erode the buildup, both boxers’ camps agreed to proceed with a non-title bout.
Castillo was ordered to weigh in again at 3 p.m. Saturday, about six hours before the opening bell, at no more than 147 pounds. He made that exactly, less than 10 pounds above his 138 1/2 pounds Friday. Fighters have gained more than that between weigh-ins and bouts, so the restriction was seen as a concession to Corrales, who weighed in at 149 at 6 p.m. Saturday, 14 pounds heavier than when he made the 135-pound limit Friday.
After the bout, the scale controversy–a Castillo cornerman had been barred from ringside for allegedly cheating by putting his foot under the scale to reduce Castillo’s reading–weighed as heavily as the outcome on Corrales’ entourage. They second-guessed whether they should have proceeded with the bout. And they intimated that their fighter’s straining to make 135 left him weaker than his opponent.
“If Castillo had made the weight, it would have made the odds more even,” said Joe Goossen, Corrales’ trainer.
Castillo blamed his weight struggle on a rib injury that interrupted his training regimen two weeks ago.
As for those title belts, he offered that Corrales “is a great, great champion” recognized as such by the WBC and WBO sanctioning bodies. But it was hard to argue with the conclusion Castillo reached based on what he had just done in the ring: “A lot of people will recognize me as champion.”
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