By: James Blears

Mexican super slugger Jose Luis Castillo is vowing that he’ll KO Diego Corrales before the seventh round, of their highly anticipated re-match On October 8th, at the Thomas and Mack Arena, Las Vegas.

Castillo made the audacious prediction, following a torrid eight round sparring session with three different opponents at the Temoaya High Altitude Training Center near Toluca.

Last May, Castillo was stopped in the tenth torrid round of slugfest by Diego Corrales. But not before decking Diego twice with left hooks. And then Diego controversially spat out his gum shield……………………, and after more than a twenty second respite, came back to amazingly halt and on coming hands down, careless, and similarly exhausted Jose Luis.

A smiling yet grim Jose Luis explained: “Last time There wasn’t a lot of jabbing or boxing. It was like a train collision,  or two buffaloes charging. It was my fault, because I was tired and lowered my hands and took a good shot.

“This time my preparation is going even better than we planned and I’m feeling strong. I currently weigh about one hundred and forty two pounds.

“This time there won’t be any doubts. It won’t be left up to the referee or the judges. There won’t be any doubts at all.

“I’m going to knock him out within seven rounds or less, whether he changes his style or not. And I’m telling you, this is going to a better fight than the last one. This fight will be even more intense.

“Diego is a bit diminished and a little more fragile than the last time round.

“And For me this fight is all or nothing. After it, I want one or two easier defenses and then possibly I’ll go up to Super Lightweights, looking for Mayweather or Cotto, or Ricky Hatton.

“Ricky is physically very strong and throws a lot of punches from many angles. And he fought a fantastic fight against Kostya Tszyu.”

A former sparring partner of the legendary Julio Cesar Chavez, Jose Luis Castillo nowadays dishes, rather than accepts helpings of leather.

First up for three rounds was former WBC Lightweight Champion Cesar Bazan, who intelligently tried to keep Castillo at the end of a long straight left jab. But Castillo soon cut off his sparring partner’s range finder, and caught him with some medium intensity level left hooks to the liver and midriff. Then he started doubling up to the head.

Next was Martin Ramirez Lugo, who’s  build is very similar to Diego Corrales but he missed, catching fresh air with a lot of ramrod left leads,  and he was a much easier and less challenging target. In the third round, Martin made the mistake of a bit of show boating, winging in a couple of jolting long rights into Castillo’s sweat shirted body.  The swift retaliation was a single crunching left hook to his body,  that landed with a whip lash crack, and had him wincing gasping plus evading.

The best was left to last, in the form of  18 year old Julio Cesar “Babe Face” Garcia (33-2 with 26 ko’s). A super lightweight who’s a WBC Youth champion, and already ranked tenth in the grown up division.

Almost exactly the same size and build at Jose Luis Castillo, the youngster cheekily decided to stand toe to toe and slug it out.  A twenty second toe to toe exchange brought everyone to ringside and was only subsided as the kid started to slow down, feeling the effects of a stronger mature man.

Undeterred, if not unabashed,  he tried the same tactic in round two, catching and oncoming Castillo with some sneaky shortened left leads, before getting  speared with a double handed pounding to head and body. Older and wiser heads then read the gathering storm clouds, picked up on the combative clues and restricted this close encounter to two.

Seldom serious for long, once he steps outside the ropes, Jose Luis was delighted by Diego’s invitation of a few beers afterwards, if the pair don’t end up in hospital this time.

He grinned: “Yep, we’re good friends and afterwards we can go for a few beers. Some beers yes, but tequilas…no!”