DIEGO CORRALES, 1977-2007

Wednesday, May 9, 2007 | 7:21 a.m.

Hey Chico, we were just talkin' about you.

It was Saturday night and I was commiserating with my pay-per-view guests that the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight wasn't nearly as dramatic as its build-up when my wife chimed in.

"Too bad it couldn't have been like those welterweights," she said.

That's what my wife calls all the nonheavyweight boxing weight classes. But she was referring to your lightweight title bout against Jose Luis Castillo, the 2005 fight of the year, which was so bloody and so brutal that Quentin Tar antino should have directed it.

Who could forget that 10th round, when Castillo had you down (twice) and out on your feet (at least three times) before you summoned the strength from who knows where to knock him out? What courage! What guts!

Five months later, when the two of you decided to do it again, Castillo couldn't make weight. You did. You could have pulled out of the fight. But you said no, boxing fans had paid good money to see a fight and you were going to give them one - even if the guy in the other corner look like a fattened calf being led to market and you like Jenny Craig.

In the fourth round, Castillo put all that weight behind a left hook that caught you flush on the chin. After you were counted out, I remember the blank expression on your face. And I remember you looking toward the press section and mouthing the words "What happened?" as if we could somehow fill you in on the 10 seconds of your life that had come up missing.

It's the same reaction I had when the guy on the 11 o'clock news said you had crashed your motorcycle Monday night.