The ending was almost inevitable

Diego Corrales was a con artist with a twinkle in his eye.

When he died at 29 in a motorcycle crash Monday night in Las Vegas, boxing mourned its loss and admitted it wasn’t surprised.

“He fought recklessly and he lived recklessly,” said Gary Shaw, his promoter.

“Face to face, he was a wonderful kid,” said Bill Caplan, longtime boxing publicist.

“In the back of our minds, we all saw this coming,” said Joe Goossen, who trained him in the glory days of his greatest fights.

It was two years to the day of his death that Diego (Chico) Corrales emerged from a tough childhood in the Oak Park suburb of Sacramento and 14 months in prison for domestic abuse to become a boxing star. On that May 7, 2005 night in Las Vegas, he got off the canvas twice in the 10th round to knock out Jose Luis Castillo. Many who were there still call it the best fight they have ever seen. When they ran polls for fight of the decade, it got lots of votes.

The fight was one of those moments that keeps the sport alive. Film clips of it probably have influenced the sale of another 50,000 tickets to other fights in the two years since, plus innumerable pay-per-view buys.

Like Corrales, the ending was violent and quirky.

Despite fighting at 135 pounds, these were not two quick little guys, jabbing and running. Castillo and Corrales started every round by going to the center of the ring, leaning on each other and flailing away.

“We are magnets to metal,” Corrales once said.

Castillo put Corrales on his back twice in the 10th. Each time, Goossen was deliberate in his cleansing of Corrales’ mouthpiece, which had come out each time. It was both masterful and reminiscent of the famous Angelo Dundee move in Muhammad Ali’s corner when Henry Cooper had Ali in trouble and Dundee cut Ali’s gloves, forcing a delay while the glove was fixed. Ali recovered and won.

After Castillo’s second knockdown, clean mouthpiece recovery time notwithstanding, Corrales looked to be one more Castillo flurry away from the end. But as Castillo closed for the kill, Corrales somehow mustered enough to catch Castillo flush on the chin. In seconds, everything turned upside down and referee Tony Weeks was flinging himself on top of a now helpless Castillo to prevent serious damage.

Corrales was on top of the world, and Goossen was worried.

“I remember thinking,” Goossen said, “that this fight was 30 fights rolled into one.”

Boxing saw it had a good thing, so five months later, they went at it again. Only this time, Castillo didn’t make weight, they fought anyway, and a stronger, bigger Castillo knocked out Corrales.

Castillo-Corrales III was even worse. Matter of fact, it never happened. Again, Castillo couldn’t make weight and this time, influenced greatly by Goossen, who feared more damage from another brawl with a stronger, heavier fighter, Corrales called it off, leaving $1.2 million on the table.

“We all could have used that,” Goossen said, “but it was the right thing.”

Little after that was right for Corrales. He won some fights, lost more, eventually split with Goossen and didn’t even pay him for their last fight. He was in and out of his home and the daily life of his family, which included five children -- one of wife Michelle’s, three of his by a previous marriage, and their baby, Daylia, who Corrales proudly delivered himself, with help from Dr. Nicole Moss.

Sometimes, he’d just disappear for four or five days, according to a close friend. High on his list of loves was motorcycle riding. He belonged to a local motorcycle club, sometimes went on long distance rides and, recently, had purchased a new one. This, coupled with a tendency to drink too much, made his life a recipe for disaster.

But to the end, the other side of Corrales gave those around him hope. They knew the side that loved to talk about cooking, that could tell a Louis Vuitton purse from a rip-off and actually had discussions with people about existentialism.

Part of the time, he was Oprah with tattoos and facial scar tissue.

“When we were in training, he’d come to the house once, twice a week for dinner,” Goossen said. “After dinner, the guys would go into the living room and watch sports on TV. Diego would sit in the kitchen with my wife and girls and talk about fashion and soap operas. He’d do that for hours. You talk about boxing endurance. That was real endurance.

“He was amazing socially. He could converse just as well with a prince or a pauper.”

To the end, his friends thought he would get a grip on the demons that drove him. Michelle is pregnant and they thought that might bring him around. They hoped for him because he was worth hoping for. They could see a future because he had told them there would be one.

Undoubtedly, when he told them that, he had a twinkle in his eye.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.