Fight was no safe bet

LAS VEGAS -- What happened to Diego Corrales over the weekend was a sad case of the consequences of trying to fulfill dreams in a town as morally bankrupt as Las Vegas.

Vegas is where hope goes to die. It sprawls across the Nevada desert with no reason to exist except to break hearts. No reason for anyone to have settled there until a Mafia accountant named Meyer Lansky came up with a unique way to take money from the innocent and not-so-innocent, which is why Las Vegas is a place someone seeking his fortune should avoid.

Corrales, the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Organization lightweight champion came to Vegas last week in search of renewed glory, a continuation of the good fortune he first found there five months ago. Anyone who too often seeks fortune in such a town is doomed, as was Corrales long before Jose Luis Castillo knocked him out at 47 seconds of the fourth round in a rematch of their startling first fight, that classic five months ago.

Saturday night's knockout brings up several thoughts, none of them good for Corrales or for boxing. The first was that a welterweight beats a lightweight most of the time. The question is why was a lightweight allowed to fight a welterweight at the Thomas and Mack Center in the first place? Why was there a contract that stipulated both men fight at no more than 135 pounds if there was no intention of enforcing it? Why does Nevada have an athletic commission if it does not enforce its rules and protect its fighters from the violent fraud perpetrated on Corrales Saturday night?

Why? The same reason for most everything else that happens in Vegas. Money and greed.

When Castillo failed to even come close to making the lightweight limit of 135 pounds Friday afternoon, losing only 1 ounce in the third of his three efforts, decisions had to be made. On the third try, Castillo weighed 138 1/2, according to a scale the commission found Castillo's doctor trying to manipulate with his foot. That act alone tainted the process, but the fact is Castillo was well above 135 then and by late afternoon the next day, he was up to 147, a weight Corrales's handlers reluctantly agreed to accept if it was reached by 3 p.m. Saturday.

Castillo actually weighed more than that when he got into the ring. Corrales, meanwhile, had sweated and strained his way down to 135 by Friday, an effort that weakens the body even though 36 hours remained for him to replenish fluids. According to the commission, Corrales weighed 149 1/2 at 6 p.m. Saturday, 5 1/2 hours before he got into the ring. If that's what the champion weighed, what did his challenger carry in with him?

Too much weight and way too much strength for Corrales to hang with him for very long.

But why would Corrales's people put him at risk in what they knew was sure to be a grueling match even under the best of circumstances? These are aggressive fighters who like nothing better than to put their chins together in the center of the ring and batter each other until one implodes.

In May, that person was Castillo, who twice dropped Corrales in the 10th round only to make a mistake on the way in to finish him. Castillo was stunned by a right to the jaw that immobilized him just long enough for Corrales to batter him with a furious flurry that left Castillo out on his feet when referee Tony Weeks stopped the assault.

Considering the damage Castillo had done to Corrales that night, closing both his eyes, bruising his insides, and knocking him down twice when he weighed 135, what on earth would convince the champion's advisers to allow Saturday night's fight to go forward at 147 or heavier?

Two reasons. Corrales was to be paid $2 million, and the evil forces that so often have conspired against a fighter's well being -- big television money and big casino money -- were not to be denied without consequences for promoters Bob Arum and Gary Shaw and the fighters.

Why did the commission fine Castillo 10 percent of his $1.2 million purse for his overage, yet let him fight at least two weight classes above the contracted limit? M-O-N-E-Y.

All those forces, as well as Corrales not wanting to waste two months of training and his misplaced sense of invincibility, were a powerful cocktail in a town that serves them up for breakfast. No one was willing to simply say, ''Fight's off," because the wrath of the casinos and TV networks, as well as that of the governor's office once it began receiving angry phone calls from powerful business figures, was too much for either the commission or Corrales's promoter to stand up to.

So, instead, Corrales fell down.

He was battered to the floor by Castillo, who was clearly bigger and stronger. He hurt Corrales from the first moment they engaged.

As he had in the first fight, Corrales refused to use his jab, longer reach, and boxing ability to frustrate Castillo. Within two rounds, it was clear Corrales's punches were not having the same stinging effect on Castillo, while the ones he was absorbing were ripping him apart.

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Finally, roughly 37 seconds into Round 4, Castillo crushed him with a massive left hook to the jaw, sending him to the canvas. Corrales's eyes were vacant, his mind drowning in a roiling, concussive sea. Eventually he pushed himself up on instinct, but as he rose, he staggered sideways, and referee Joe Cortez stopped what never should have started.

''I'll never again do what I did," said Shaw, Corrales's promoter, from inside the ring after the damage had been done. ''If I have a contract for 135, we fight at the contract weight."

He sounded an awful lot like a guy on the red-eye home from Vegas with empty pockets, insisting next time he won't split those kings because, if he hadn't, he'd have owned the place.