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Just trying to explain to a friend why I think Castillo vs Corrales is one of the greatest pieces of art ever, and so I thought I'd write down all the thoughts that come into my head when I watch or think about it (and a few lines cribbed from previous posts I've made on here about it).
The friend isn't really a boxing fan (hence some of the simplistic explanations that you guys won't need telling about)
Yeah, so.....lemme know what you think (don't kill me, eh) and add some of your own thoughts about this incredible fight, pls.
"Jose Luis Castillo vs Diego “Chico” Corrales - this fight is not just a fistic masterpiece, a sporting masterpiece……but an artistic one. It means as much to me as my favourite films or albums. It’s amazing. Just amazing. ****, I will never use the word “amazing” to describe anything else ever again.
It took me a week to download the High Definition version of the fight. And once I did, I found it oddly difficult to watch; to be so close and intimate with something that was overwhelming for me in the grainy YouTube version I used to use before I upgraded to a (non-HD) AVI version. The cuts and swelling and bruises on both fighters becoming so close and palpable, making you realize even more starkly the pain both fighters endured during the fight. You become so used to fighters getting cut and bleeding, that you forget that they are not simply immune to it because it’s an occupational hazard, and that no amount of adrenaline can mask all the pain.
And the fight….it's just so full of emotion and truth and beauty and brutality. Everything. It has everything.
Chico not being around anymore undeniably gives it a bit more resonance and poignancy in the way art does when the artist’s death was too early and recent…. but I would still rate is as the greatest boxing fight of all time even if he was around. And man, I wish he was.
You can feel something special is happening right from the opening bell. Maybe even right from the introductions, just seeing the fire burning in Chico's eyes as he’s introduced. I always love seeing fighter introductions anyway because of the fighters are now in the zone. All the bull**** is over. Now it’s time for that great maxim boxing has to reveal itself - “the truth is going to find you in the ring”. This is it. Just you and the guy across whose gonna try to take your head off, take your title, take those money-generating big fights away from you, trying to stop your securing your family’s future. And you’re trying to do the same to him.
There are very few other sports which have the enormous stakes boxing does – if you lose, you can’t just write it off. You don’t move onto the next fight. You don’t GET the next fight.
Neither Chico or JLC were the greatest fighters ever, but they were tremendous fighters in their division, for their time. Talented enough to exhibit great, great skills during the fight. Gatti vs Ward is a terrific brawl, so much fun. But neither of those two fighters were on the level of Chico and JLC.
But it’s not just the skill that elevates the fights; it’s the will. Will, guts and determination like you would not believe. The like us mere mortals could never exhibit. One of the things that awes me about boxing is the knowledge I could never do what they do, even if I had the talent. Talent is just the start in boxing. But you need so much more than that. You can’t coast to a nice career in boxing. No team-mates to carry you as you work your way through a slump in form, or if you’re simply born with a limited skill set. You need such incredible mental fortitude and physical toughness to be great in boxing. Chris Eubank once said that he developed a mental strategy to deal with suppressing the pain. Chico spent 2 weeks straight in bed after this fight.
Chico’s philosophy going into the fight was to show JLC that he was tougher than him. With his height, range and superior handspeed, he could’ve worked behind the jab and made the fighter easier for himself. But he chose to go into JLC’s territory, and fight him on the inside. In Round 2, JLC really cranked it up and you could see Chico maybe contemplating changing tactics….but that would have been conceding to JLC. And Chico wasn’t gonna concede anything anything that night.
Chico vs JLC has that one thing all great fights have – shifts in momentum. Really subtle ones that are barely perceptible, until they slowly lead to bigger shifts. At times, JLC looks like he’s gonna run through Chico – and then Chico comes back to hurt him.
The back-and forth action, brutality, amazing in-fighting, intelligence, unrelenting pace…….both fighters leaving it all in the ring, beating the prime out of each other but neither willing to give in. When you have these sort of fights in boxing, they seal your legacy….but end your prime. You’re never the same again. In boxing, it’s not the age that slows you down as much as the wear and tear. Morales was shot at 31 after all the wars he had. Hopkins is still going strong at 46, so great was he at minimising the level damage he took in fights.
All the in between round moments are compelling in their own right. You can see the toll they are taking on both fighters, round by round, the physical deterioration of their faces. These 60 second breaks a small moment of respite before they have to go back and keep fighting through it.
You see Joe Goosen thrashing water on Chico’s face, as that welt under his eye becomes more and more grotesque - you can see the swelling literally wobbling,. You’re thinking one hard punch on it will send the puss flying into the audience. But not only does Chico have to carry on fighting with it, he’s gotta take JLC (quite rightly) targeting it. No mercy. There can’t be. It’s your swelling or his, your head or his, your family’s future or his, your title or his. Your greatness or his.
At one point, Castillo winces a little as someone works on a cut on his eye in between rounds. Reminded me of that funny observation about movie action heroes who can have bullet ricochet of them but if someone dabs a tissue on a bloody scar, they wince. Castillo was taking bombs, the best Chico had to offer, to the head and body, having to walk through that fire, having to hide all the pain he was in. But he was hurting. And this wasn’t a movie. The only acting that he was doing was trying to hide every time Chico hurt him. You can’t show weakness in boxing.
Even the ending is perfect (though I'm not a fan of Chico spitting the gum-shield out). JLC going in for the kill, knocking down Chico twice. When you’re hurt like that, that late, it’s normally it. Even if you get out of the round, it takes more than the 10 second count to get your legs and **** together again.
But then….in the same round Chico stems JLC's tide, and fights back. And even though JLC is trying to hide how hurt he is, Chico can sense it and bit by bit, punch by punch, sets up the final combination to take him out. When I go back to the moment, I love seeing the crowd going ape-****. I wish I was there. It’s one of those events in history that I would have given anything to be there. They were part of something special, something that only comes around once a lifetime.
Before the fight, Chico told JLC that they were going make history. After it, he sought out JLC in the ring and said to him….”thank you”. When asked to describe the fight afterward, Chico could have used so many words – brutal, vicious, attrition, war, ****ing hard.
But he called it “an honour”.
Cos he knew that he and JLC had achieved one of the greatest things man can – artistic immortality."
The friend isn't really a boxing fan (hence some of the simplistic explanations that you guys won't need telling about)
Yeah, so.....lemme know what you think (don't kill me, eh) and add some of your own thoughts about this incredible fight, pls.
"Jose Luis Castillo vs Diego “Chico” Corrales - this fight is not just a fistic masterpiece, a sporting masterpiece……but an artistic one. It means as much to me as my favourite films or albums. It’s amazing. Just amazing. ****, I will never use the word “amazing” to describe anything else ever again.
It took me a week to download the High Definition version of the fight. And once I did, I found it oddly difficult to watch; to be so close and intimate with something that was overwhelming for me in the grainy YouTube version I used to use before I upgraded to a (non-HD) AVI version. The cuts and swelling and bruises on both fighters becoming so close and palpable, making you realize even more starkly the pain both fighters endured during the fight. You become so used to fighters getting cut and bleeding, that you forget that they are not simply immune to it because it’s an occupational hazard, and that no amount of adrenaline can mask all the pain.
And the fight….it's just so full of emotion and truth and beauty and brutality. Everything. It has everything.
Chico not being around anymore undeniably gives it a bit more resonance and poignancy in the way art does when the artist’s death was too early and recent…. but I would still rate is as the greatest boxing fight of all time even if he was around. And man, I wish he was.
You can feel something special is happening right from the opening bell. Maybe even right from the introductions, just seeing the fire burning in Chico's eyes as he’s introduced. I always love seeing fighter introductions anyway because of the fighters are now in the zone. All the bull**** is over. Now it’s time for that great maxim boxing has to reveal itself - “the truth is going to find you in the ring”. This is it. Just you and the guy across whose gonna try to take your head off, take your title, take those money-generating big fights away from you, trying to stop your securing your family’s future. And you’re trying to do the same to him.
There are very few other sports which have the enormous stakes boxing does – if you lose, you can’t just write it off. You don’t move onto the next fight. You don’t GET the next fight.
Neither Chico or JLC were the greatest fighters ever, but they were tremendous fighters in their division, for their time. Talented enough to exhibit great, great skills during the fight. Gatti vs Ward is a terrific brawl, so much fun. But neither of those two fighters were on the level of Chico and JLC.
But it’s not just the skill that elevates the fights; it’s the will. Will, guts and determination like you would not believe. The like us mere mortals could never exhibit. One of the things that awes me about boxing is the knowledge I could never do what they do, even if I had the talent. Talent is just the start in boxing. But you need so much more than that. You can’t coast to a nice career in boxing. No team-mates to carry you as you work your way through a slump in form, or if you’re simply born with a limited skill set. You need such incredible mental fortitude and physical toughness to be great in boxing. Chris Eubank once said that he developed a mental strategy to deal with suppressing the pain. Chico spent 2 weeks straight in bed after this fight.
Chico’s philosophy going into the fight was to show JLC that he was tougher than him. With his height, range and superior handspeed, he could’ve worked behind the jab and made the fighter easier for himself. But he chose to go into JLC’s territory, and fight him on the inside. In Round 2, JLC really cranked it up and you could see Chico maybe contemplating changing tactics….but that would have been conceding to JLC. And Chico wasn’t gonna concede anything anything that night.
Chico vs JLC has that one thing all great fights have – shifts in momentum. Really subtle ones that are barely perceptible, until they slowly lead to bigger shifts. At times, JLC looks like he’s gonna run through Chico – and then Chico comes back to hurt him.
The back-and forth action, brutality, amazing in-fighting, intelligence, unrelenting pace…….both fighters leaving it all in the ring, beating the prime out of each other but neither willing to give in. When you have these sort of fights in boxing, they seal your legacy….but end your prime. You’re never the same again. In boxing, it’s not the age that slows you down as much as the wear and tear. Morales was shot at 31 after all the wars he had. Hopkins is still going strong at 46, so great was he at minimising the level damage he took in fights.
All the in between round moments are compelling in their own right. You can see the toll they are taking on both fighters, round by round, the physical deterioration of their faces. These 60 second breaks a small moment of respite before they have to go back and keep fighting through it.
You see Joe Goosen thrashing water on Chico’s face, as that welt under his eye becomes more and more grotesque - you can see the swelling literally wobbling,. You’re thinking one hard punch on it will send the puss flying into the audience. But not only does Chico have to carry on fighting with it, he’s gotta take JLC (quite rightly) targeting it. No mercy. There can’t be. It’s your swelling or his, your head or his, your family’s future or his, your title or his. Your greatness or his.
At one point, Castillo winces a little as someone works on a cut on his eye in between rounds. Reminded me of that funny observation about movie action heroes who can have bullet ricochet of them but if someone dabs a tissue on a bloody scar, they wince. Castillo was taking bombs, the best Chico had to offer, to the head and body, having to walk through that fire, having to hide all the pain he was in. But he was hurting. And this wasn’t a movie. The only acting that he was doing was trying to hide every time Chico hurt him. You can’t show weakness in boxing.
Even the ending is perfect (though I'm not a fan of Chico spitting the gum-shield out). JLC going in for the kill, knocking down Chico twice. When you’re hurt like that, that late, it’s normally it. Even if you get out of the round, it takes more than the 10 second count to get your legs and **** together again.
But then….in the same round Chico stems JLC's tide, and fights back. And even though JLC is trying to hide how hurt he is, Chico can sense it and bit by bit, punch by punch, sets up the final combination to take him out. When I go back to the moment, I love seeing the crowd going ape-****. I wish I was there. It’s one of those events in history that I would have given anything to be there. They were part of something special, something that only comes around once a lifetime.
Before the fight, Chico told JLC that they were going make history. After it, he sought out JLC in the ring and said to him….”thank you”. When asked to describe the fight afterward, Chico could have used so many words – brutal, vicious, attrition, war, ****ing hard.
But he called it “an honour”.
Cos he knew that he and JLC had achieved one of the greatest things man can – artistic immortality."