Round and Round They Went in 10th

They are connected forever now. You mention one, you think about the other. Boxers Castillo and Corrales.

Sports can do that. Magic had Bird, Nicklaus had Palmer, Sampras had Agassi. Ray Fosse had Pete Rose.

It took only 2 minutes 6 seconds of the 10th round of a lightweight title fight here May 7 for Jose Luis Castillo of Mexico and Diego Corrales of Sacramento to bond their way into boxing lore. They are next of kin now, and they aren’t even related.

Sportswriters called it a “Rocky” movie, only the blood was real. The referee, Tony Weeks, who played a vital role in its outcome, said he couldn’t sleep the night of the fight and finally realized what he had been part of when people kept asking him about it weeks later.

Joe Goossen, Corrales’ trainer, who has seen a lot, said he never had seen anything like it. He called the fighters “Two quiet, nice bad-asses.” Corrales said that as hard as the eventual loss had to be for Castillo, “He might as well get used to talking about it [because] we will be stuck together forever, like it or not.”

Prelude to Round 10

It was a lightweight unification title fight, matching 135-pound champions from different sanctioning groups. Typically confusing to the public, this “unification” match left the 11,000-seat Mandalay Bay Events Center about half full -- and maybe half of those had paid for their tickets. A boxing writers’ dinner the night before, with boxing dignitaries and star fighters past and present, caused a bigger buzz than the fight.

Those who did wander in needed only a few rounds to start seeing that something special was going on. Castillo, 31, was in his 60th fight and doing what he always did, moving forward and fighting inside. Corrales, 27, was in his 42nd bout and decided that, although he was taller and probably could have avoided wear and tear by jabbing and moving, he would fight Castillo his way.

“We were going to box,” he said recently, “but I kind of shredded that game plan once the fight started. I was just in the mood to fight.”

And so, two veterans jogged to the center of the ring each round and, for the most part, stayed there, leaning on each other and pounding away. It became a symphony of uppercuts and short hooks and heads snapping back.Goossen was not surprised.

“I knew what was coming,” he said. “I never saw an inside fight executed better.”

Weeks, the referee who got into the fight game in 1991 as a prison recreation director with a night of scheduled boxing and nobody to referee, was working his 24th title fight. He’d had each fighter before.

“I knew they were good,” he said.

When they reached the 10th round of the scheduled 12, Castillo had several bloody face cuts and Corrales had a mouse under his left eye that was aspiring to qualify as a rat.

Yet each still had enough to step this up from a battle to a war.

A 10th Like No Other

In Castillo’s corner before the round, his handlers, knowing how close the fight was -- Corrales was slightly ahead -- gave general, almost cliched, directions.

“They told me to use my hands, get more busy and watch for his hands,” Castillo said. “They told me to use my head, to be smart.”

Goossen was optimistic but knew it was close.

“We were riding high,” he said. “Diego had a good ninth round.”

Weeks stood to the side, marveling.

“At that point, I thought, ‘What a great fight,’ ” he said. “Both fighters were delivering blows, both had taken equal punishment. I knew something was going to have to give.”

Something, indeed.

Corrales fell for a feint, and Castillo went over the top with a left hook that knocked Corrales down. “He shot a left hook I never saw,” Corrales said. “It caught me on the point of the chin and I crumbled. I was hurt.”

Corrales also had lost his mouthpiece. Weeks slid it toward Goossen and started his count.

“I knew he was hurt,” Weeks said. “While I’m counting, I’m evaluating. Looking at his eyes.”

Corrales beat the count, and Weeks asked him twice whether he wanted to continue.

“I always ask them twice,” Weeks said.

Corrales was sent to his corner because a mouthpiece can be replaced during a “lull in the action.”

Castillo waited, almost coiled.

“I was very confident,” he said. “I thought I needed just one more shot.”

Quickly, Castillo scored with a right uppercut and a left hook. Knockdown No. 2, and things were really getting crazy.

“This time, when I went down, my head became completely clear,” Corrales said. “You couldn’t have asked for a better way to clear the cobwebs.”

Goossen saw it too.

“The second knockdown, everybody thought he was hurt,” he said. “But the way he went down showed he wasn’t, and when he got up, his eyes were clear. He got right up.”

Weeks said, “He didn’t go down as hard as the first time. There wasn’t a three-knockdown rule, but if he went down again, I would have stopped it.”

Once again, as he counted, Weeks saw the mouthpiece on the mat. Corrales had taken it out, saying he wanted to get some air, and then tried to put it back in. But unable to handle it with the bulky boxing glove, he dropped it.

This time, Weeks assessed a point penalty. Corrales protested mildly, then went to his corner again to get the mouthpiece replaced. Had the fight gone to a decision, that lost point probably would have cost Corrales the victory.

As it turned out, the time Weeks allowed Corrales to replace his mouthpiece twice became a point of controversy afterward. Castillo’s promoter, Bob Arum, said, “Tony Weeks used very poor judgment.... It’s when Corrales spit his mouthpiece out that he handled it wrong.” Goossen’s retort?

“The mouthpiece didn’t hit anybody on the chin.”

When Corrales went down the second time, Castillo thought the fight was over.

“After the second knockdown, when [Weeks] said, ‘Let’s go,’ I was surprised,” he said. “But I just told myself, let’s finish it.”

In Corrales’ corner, Goossen had made his own assessment.

“I had a split second,” he said. “I looked at him, at his eyes. If I thought he was hurt, I would have told him to survive, or move or hold on and clutch. But I told him, ‘You’ve got to get inside. Now.’ ”

Castillo closed for the finish and, suddenly, Corrales caught him with a left hook.

“He did a little double step, so I figured I had hurt him,” Corrales said. “He threw back some shots, but they had no steam. I could walk right through him.”

Now, Castillo, who seconds earlier had been in control, was in trouble, against the ropes and reeling. The next few moments left a screaming, disbelieving crowd staring wide-eyed, mouths agape.

Corrales landed several devastating combinations, then a left hook that sent Castillo’s hands to his side and his head back. His eyes rolled back and, as Corrales reloaded, Weeks swooped in and smothered Castillo’s body with his own.

The fight of the year, maybe the decade, was over. It was a shocking turnabout. The fighter on the mat twice had recovered to knock out the fighter who had put him there. Corrales raised his arms and swaggered around the ring.

“I’ll never forget that,” Goossen said. “He looked like John Wayne.”

Weeks held up Castillo long enough for his handlers to come get him.

“He didn’t say anything,” Weeks said. “I just held on. I think he was out on his feet.”

Weeks said the Castillo corner protested the ending, but not wildly.

“They were respectful. No yelling,” he said.

Eventually, Goossen picked up Corrales and paraded him around the ring. When he set him down, Corrales had trouble standing on wobbly legs. He had given everything.

Postscripts

Saturday night, at the Thomas & Mack Center here, they will do it again. For Castillo-Corrales I, the live gate was $400,000. Two weeks before Castillo-Corrales II, the live gate sales had reached $4 million.

Joe Cortez, a veteran of title fights, will be the referee. Weeks will work a fight in Laughlin, Nev., that night.

Sadly, Weeks, who had been praised for his quick action in smothering Castillo on the ropes, worked a fight here Sept. 17 that ended up costing the life of Levander Johnson, who had taken 409 punches.

Weeks had called for a doctor’s opinion before the 11th round, then let the fight continue. He stopped it 38 seconds into the round, and Johnson collapsed near his dressing room and died a week later.

Weeks said that Marc Ratner, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, had cleared him of wrongdoing. Castillo maintained in an interview with The Times that Weeks had stopped his fight with Corrales too soon, but he was more conciliatory in a recent appearance on HBO, saying it might have been a good stop.

Goossen understands the demand for a rematch, but he is less a fan of Castillo-Corrales II than most others.

“They are both warriors, both so good and so willing,” he said. “It’s a little scary.”

Corrales understands the business and the inevitability. He also knows he has a twin for life.

“Whenever you bring up his name now, you have to bring up mine, and vice versa,” he said.

Times staff writers Steve Springer and Paul Gutierrez contributed to this report.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

CORRALES vs. CASTILLO

Diego Corrales, Sacramento

WBC, WBO lightweight champ

42-0, 33 knockouts

Age: 28; 6-0, 130 pounds

Jose Luis Castillo, Mexico

Former WBC lightweight champ

52-7-1, 46 knockouts

Age: 31; 5-8, 134 pounds