By Rick Reeno

Plenty has been said about the battle between Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo, one of the best lightweight wars in the history of the division. Most of what is being said about the fight is positive, but as in most big fights, some fans throw negative karma on what should be hailed as a glorious event for the sport.

I will break down and take apart some of the chief complaints that are going around with respect to this fight.

"Diego Corrales cheated by spitting out his mouthpiece twice." - I think what Diego Corrales did was one of the smartest things I have ever seen a fighter do in that type of a situation. Corrales showed the ring skills of a veteran and quick thinking to get himself out of serious trouble. Corrales was hurt and in danger of being knocked out or having the fight stopped, he played his hand and it worked. After both knockdowns, Corrales was cohearent enough to use as much time to recover as possible. Following both knockdowns, Corrales stayed down until the count of 9 and took out his mouthpiece to give himself extra time to recover. Corrales says that the first time the mouthpiece came out, it came out without his intervention. Diego admits that following the second knockdown, he took the mouthpiece out of his mouth and dropped it.

Diego had his career on the line, millions of dollars in possible future fights riding on a win, his pride at stake and he did whatever he had to do in order to survive. Regardless of the valuable seconds Corrales received from the mouthpiece infractions, Castillo was still caught out there being reckless. Corrales lost a point for the second mouthpiece infraction, which gave Castillo a 10-6 round at that point and put him ahead on all the scorecards by a decent margin. Castillo should have either went to the body on the inside or stayed away and picked his spots. What Castillo did was jump right back on Corrales and stood toe to toe with a big puncher who already rocked him several times in the fight.

The are two very famous sayings that most veteran's use in the fight game:

1. Never chase a puncher around.

2. Be very careful when trying to knockout a hurt fighter because when a fighter is hurt, he is at his most dangerous level. Getting reckless while trying to knockout a hurt fighter can get you knocked out.

Castillo did not follow what most ring veterans preach, he went for the KO and got caught with big punches because he gave Corrales the necessary openings by standing toe to toe with him. Like I stated earlier, if Castillo would of stayed away and picked his spots from a distance, he would of gained a 10-6 round in what was a very close fight.

"There should of been a standing 8 count" - There was no standing 8 count in effect for the unification battle between Castillo and Corrales. A standing 8 count causes more harm then it does good because it prevents a fighter from knocking his opponent out. Imagine a fighter beating on his opponent and the ref cuts the fighter off from scoring the KO by jumping in the middle in order to give the other fighter extra time to recover. Some fighters like to play possum in order to lure an opponent in, that strategy will be thrown out the window because fighters will be too scared that the ref may fall for the ploy and give them a standing 8 count.

"The fight was stopped prematurely" - Tony Weeks made the correct call without a shadow of a doubt. Castillo was clearly out on his feet. The deciding factor for Weeks to stop the fight had to have been when Castillo dropped both of his hands to his side and was no longer defending himself. Castillo was a limp body against the ropes, his head was laying back on the ropes fully exposed, both of his hands were down to his side and Corrales was about to land more bombs with plenty of time left in the fight. Fans should not be criticizing Weeks for a premature stoppage, they should be praising Weeks for saving Castillo from possible serious injury. How can the fans justify the ref stopping a fight prematurely when Castillo was not punching back, not defending himself laying limp against the ropes and was fully exposed for more big shots.

Whenever there is a big fight, fans of the fighter that lost or haters of the fighter that won, will find reasons to downplay the victory. There should be no reason for hating anyone in this fight. The ref let the two warriors battle on the inside without every getting involved and did not take any points away from either fighter for their roughhouse tactics. Both fighters came into the ring as champions, fought like champions and in the end they both left the ring like champions. Neither fighter can be called a loser, both men left the ring as winners. We should appreciate a fight like this because it only comes around once every couple of years. If there were more fights like this and more top class fighters willing to battle each other without there being a $50 dollar pay per view price tag, the sport of boxing would be on top of the world.