Corrales: Poise under fire

Monday, Oct. 10, 2005 | 9:35 a.m.

Jeff Haney

In a tense moment late Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center, the usually ebullient Jose Luis Castillo said he felt as if he was on trial in a courtroom.

It was an apt analogy, as the events surrounding his fight against lightweight champ Diego Corrales certainly contained elements of a legal thriller.

Of all those involved, it was Corrales -- who finished his night by getting counted out, the victim of a Castillo knockout -- who acquitted himself most admirably.

It was Corrales who made the ultimate decision to allow the fight to go on, he said, after Castillo failed to make the required 135-pound weight limit, and after a member of Castillo's camp was caught trying to tamper with the scale at the weigh-in.

"When he didn't make weight, I had two options," Corrales said. The first was to call off the fight entirely. The second was to allow Castillo to weigh in at 147 pounds on the day of the fight and proceed with the match.

"I chose the second option because people deserve to see a fighter do his job," Corrales said. "If this fight doesn't happen, it's bad for boxing."

If Diego Corrales says the fight should go on, that's good enough for me. He made the right call -- for himself, and for boxing.

Yes, the weight controversy took some luster off the fight, a rematch of the most competitive and exciting championship bout in memory, won by Corrales by 10th-round TKO on May 7.

But as Corrales said, canceling the fight would have been worse. Castillo made a mistake -- "I let people down," he told reporters drilling him with pointed questions afterward -- and Corrales took a shot for the sake of his beloved sport.

"This is the kind of thing that deals boxing bad blows," Corrales said. "This is the reason we don't get the respect that football does. I love my job; I love my sport."

As Yogi Berra might have said, this time the fight was the same, only different.

The two men engaged each other on the inside from Round 1, as in the first fight, scoring with heavy uppercuts and counterpunches. But Castillo ended it dramatically by connecting with a short, crunching left, knocking out Corrales at 47 seconds of the fourth round.

In the hours leading to the opening bell, however, not everyone assumed the extra weight would give Castillo an edge.

Some thought Castillo's inability to make weight indicated a lack of motivation -- or even chaos -- in his training camp. Or the fact that Corrales' championship belts would no longer be on the line -- the fight became a non-title event -- would lead to an uninspired performance.

One knowledgeable local boxing fan sent me an e-mail, taunting me for picking Castillo in a column Friday, and asking if I still liked "El Gordo" -- the fat guy, essentially.

Corrales (40-3) made 135 pounds at the weigh-in and was at 149 for the fight. Castillo (53-7-1, 46 knockouts) weighed in at 147 on the day of the fight.

As Saturday night crept toward Sunday morning, and fight fans were coming down from an emotional evening, and winds were whipping up in the Thomas & Mack's parking lot, co-promoters Bob Arum and Gary Shaw were seen yelling and finger-pointing.

Literally, they were pointing fingers at each other as they argued, like a pugilistic version of Earl Weaver and Ron Luciano, in contrast to Corrales' classy demeanor.

It's no mystery how the verdict there will be rendered, though.

Sometime next year, Arum (who promotes Castillo) and Shaw (Corrales) will tell us, yeah, we've had our differences in the past but, boy, what a great new extravaganza we have for you.

About the only question is whether it will be held at 135 pounds, like the first fight, or 140. ("Hey, I'm a tall guy," Corrales said.)

Castillo-Corrales III: "The Weighting is the Hardest Part."

Jeff Haney can be reached at 259-4041 or haney@lasvegassun.com.