Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Corrales-Castillo encore

Fight facts

Location: Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center. First bell, 3:30 p.m.; Showtime pay-per-view, 6 p.m. Weigh-in: 2:30 p.m. Friday, outdoors at Caesars Palace Roman Plaza

At stake: World lightweight championship; Corrales' WBC and WBO belts

Betting line: Corrales minus-145 (risk $1.45 to win $1); Castillo plus-130

INTRO: 'THE 11TH ROUND'

In their first encounter May 7 at Mandalay Bay, Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo fought a brawl for the ages, like two men swinging sledgehammers at close range with brutal efficiency and precision. Castillo, who entered the fight as world lightweight champion, finally broke through in the 10th round and knocked Corrales down twice. Undeterred, a battered Corrales rose from the canvas. He jarred Castillo with a left hook and followed with a series of big punches to score an improbable knockout. Saturday night, Corrales and Castillo will fight again. "They're calling it a rematch," Corrales said. "I just call it the 11th round."

1. PERFECT 10TH

The first nine rounds alone made the first Castillo-Corrales bout a front-runner for the best fight of the year. The 10th round made history. "That round is a fight by itself," Corrales said. "I knew I had given him a pretty good pounding, and I thought he had no power left." The first knockdown left him seriously buzzed, Corrales said. "I walked into a left hook that was crushing," he said. Even after the second knockdown, Corrales kept his wits about him. "It was a real war, but no emotions ever came into it," he said. "I never panicked."

2. HISTORY LESSON

Bob Arum of Top Rank, Castillo's promoter, said he has seen only two fights that were comparable to Castillo-Corrales I. One was the action-filled 1985 middleweight title fight between Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns at Caesars Palace, in which the Marvelous One scored a third-round knockout. The other was Muhammad Ali's victory against Joe Frazier in their third fight, the grueling "Thrilla in Manila" in 1975. "I would put those two in the same category as Castillo-Corrales," Arum said. But he wonders if Saturday's rematch will live up to expectations. "The truth is, I can't imagine any fight exceeding their first fight," Arum said.

3. SPIT HAPPENS

Castillo fans cried foul when Corrales spit out his mouthpiece after each knockdown in the first fight and a lengthy delay ensued as the mouthpiece was recovered, rinsed and replaced by trainer Joe Goossen. "When I saw that, I knew he was hoping to get some extra time," Castillo said. Corrales' promoter, Gary Shaw, did not dispute that Goossen took his time, but tried to absolve the trainer of any wrongdoing. "Maybe it's his age, or maybe he's smart," Shaw said. "He didn't break any rules."

4. THE STYLES

Castillo and Corrales redefined the old term "toe to toe" in the first match, as both men did much of their scoring with short lefts and Castillo worked the uppercut well. Goossen declined to discuss his strategy for the rematch, but both fighters said they are prepared for another all-out brawl. "You can match us up 100 times, and 99 times we're going to fight that exact same fight," Corrales said. His opponent agreed. "This time," Castillo said, "when I knock him down, I'll make sure he doesn't get up."

5. THE SADISM?

Immediately after the first bout, Goossen said Corrales and Castillo should never fight again, and that you'd have to be "sadistic" to want to see a rematch. "That statement was made more out of emotion," Goossen said recently. "The last thing I wanted to hear about was a rematch, even if it was against Tinkerbell." Beauty and brutality, Corrales pointed out, are not mutually exclusive. "What makes boxing great is it has elegant moments and savage moments."

archive