Over and Out of It

Before a hushed crowd Friday afternoon in the Augustus Ballroom at Caesars Palace, Jose Luis Castillo stepped on a scale, sucked in his breath until his rib cage showed, lifted his heels and stretched his arms high above his head, acting as if minimal contact with the scale beneath him could somehow lower the reading.

He didn’t fool anybody.

“Jose Luis Castillo, 139 1/2 pounds,” announced Keith Kizer, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

And there that stubborn scale remained, even when Castillo returned after a two-hour grace period. Again he tentatively stepped on the scale, and again he was 4 1/2 pounds over the limit for tonight’s scheduled World Boxing Council lightweight title fight against champion Diego Corrales, who weighed in at 135.

After an intense but civil meeting between handlers for both sides, it was announced that the fight had been canceled.

The show, what’s left of it, will go on at the Thomas & Mack Center with the scheduled semi-main event -- International Boxing Federation flyweight champion Vic Darchinyan against challenger Luis Maldonado -- now the main event. There will be six other fights on the card.

When that announcement was made by Castillo’s promoter, Bob Arum, he was greeted by boos from the crowd in the ballroom. Even announcing that refunds were available didn’t seem to satisfy the fans.

“All I can say to everyone is that I am sorry,” Castillo said through an interpreter. “I just couldn’t do it. I did all that was humanly possible.”

Arum wasn’t buying that, insisting that he had been deceived by the Castillo camp, which he said kept assuring him the fighter’s weight was under control.

“I am absolutely disgusted,” Arum said. “People have been lying to me for months. I am totally fed up. This is a disgrace for boxing. There is no excuse. If he couldn’t make the weight, he should have let people know.

“This is not acceptable behavior. I feel sorry for Diego.”

Nobody was more disappointed than Corrales, who was to receive $1.2 million. But he was convinced by promoter Gary Shaw, manager James Prince and trainer Joe Goossen that it wasn’t worth the weight.

“It took a lot of work to talk me out of it,” Corrales said. “This is worse than losing.”

“If Diego had gotten hurt, I would never forgive myself,” Shaw said.

All too fresh in the memory of the Corrales camp was the second match between the fighters. After Corrales had twice pulled himself off the canvas in the 10th round to stop Castillo before that round had ended in their first meeting 13 months ago, Castillo failed to make weight in the rematch in October. Even though Castillo was 3 1/2 pounds over, Corrales went ahead with the fight, which the WBC would not sanction as a championship bout, and was knocked out in the fourth round.

“When I got to Las Vegas [at the start of this week], I was at 141 pounds,” Castillo said.

“I knew then I was going to be able to make the weight. But the last couple of days, I have not been able to lose anything.”

The WBC, concerned after the last fight, had sent an official to Castillo’s training camp in Mexico to periodically monitor his weight loss. They had reported he was down to 146 pounds two weeks ago and 142 last week.

Handlers admitted that he still weighed 138 pounds when he stepped on the scale two hours before Friday’s official weigh-in.

“Why couldn’t he do it so we wouldn’t come to this point?” Corrales said. “You do not eat the sweets. You do not drink the water. If you can’t do it, don’t say you can do it.

“I’m not a lightweight, either, [not] a natural lightweight, but I was [Friday]. When you agree to do it, I believe that, come hell or high water, you do it. I am a professional.”

The Nevada commission had warned Castillo that, if he failed to make the weight, he would be fined one quarter of his $900,000 purse. That purse no longer exists, but the commission is expected to file a complaint against Castillo, which could result in a fine of up to $250,000.

Shaw said he would sue Castillo for expenses he laid out, which he estimates at $200,000.

The Showtime cable network has offered Corrales a fight in September or October.

And Castillo, shaking off all the criticism, insists he will move on with his career.

“I look forward,” he said, “to getting up to 140 or 147 pounds and fighting Ricky Hatton.”

Responded Corrales: “I wouldn’t give him the chance to make any money.”

When the cameras were shut off and the notepads put away, Castillo, surrounded by his entourage, disappeared from the ballroom down a hallway, presumably on his way to dinner.