Young Dick Tiger Stops Castillo in 2nd Round

It was billed as the Philippines vs. Africa. If it had been a war, it would have ended with an unconditional surrender.

Young Dick Tiger, the welterweight champion of Africa, stopped Dionisio Castillo, the welterweight champ of the Philippines, at 2:58 of the second round of their scheduled 10-round main event Tuesday night in the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton-Universal Hotel in Universal City.

Tiger (17-1, 14 knockouts) now hopes to sign for a match against former World Boxing Assn. welterweight champion Pipino Cuevas. That fight would take place Feb. 6 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena.

Castillo (12-5-4, 5 knockouts) went down four times in the second round of Tuesday’s fight, the final time from a left hook. Although Castillo didn’t appear to be seriously hurt, referee John Thomas signaled that the fight was over. Tuesday’s semi-main event appeared to be a mismatch at best. After all, Elias Madrid of Sylmar was entering the ring with a 14-0-1 mark and 12 knockouts. His last fight had ended in a first round knockout. His opponent in Tuesday’s super lightweight bout was Robert Lewis of Los Angeles, owner of a 2-2-3 mark.

As if Lewis didn’t appear to have enough going against him, he was taking this fight on about five hours’ notice, having learned he would fight Madrid only after several other perspective opponents had washed out.

So what happened?

Nothing that could have pleased those who like to bet on a sure thing. It was Lewis who emerged a knockout winner, stopping Madrid at 2:17 of the first round with a solid right hand, set up by a vicious left hook.

Madrid was up at the count of nine but in no condition to continue to fight.

“Didn’t make any difference to me,” said Lewis of the short notice. “I train hard every day. I’m the baddest. I proved I’m the baddest.”

Both preliminary fights ended with accidental head butts. Rod Starks (8-7-3) of Los Angeles was awarded a technical decision over Otis Pimpleton (2-3-1) of Las Vegas after Starks received an accidental butt in the second round of their scheduled six-round super welterweight match. And Oscar Chavarria (3-1-2) of Los Angeles and Carlos Manzano (11-4-3) of San Pedro fought to a technical draw in a bantamweight bout that was stopped when Manzano was the victim of a butt.