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Marcos Bretón: Corrales: You can't take your eyes off him
By Marcos Bretón -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, July 22, 2005
Story appeared in Sports section, Page C1
Diego Corrales is loaded in the chute, primed for the millions and maulings his trade of boxing metes out to those blessed and cursed with Corrales' gifts.
Gifts of rage. A taste for the jugular. An iron chin. It's all part of the same sweet and savage package in the 27-year-old South Sacramento kid who has gone to hell and back, to prison and back, to the canvas and back - always swinging and often connecting to devastating effect.
Corrales is famous now, can't kick back at home anymore, can't rest on his laurels.
He triumphed in the fight of the year - of the decade and maybe of all time - in his thrilling, engrossing 10-round knockout of José Luis Castillo last May in Las Vegas.
Knocked twice to the canvas in the 10th after nine brutal rounds - and seemingly out on his feet - Corrales tapped his singular wellspring of fury to bludgeon a good-as-won Castillo, snapping his head back like a chicken bone.
When Castillo's arms dropped to his side and his eyes rolled backward, Corrales was crowned the undisputed lightweight champion of the world.
What did it feel like to watch that fight? It was like watching something illicit, something your inner adult said you shouldn't enjoy yet did.
Yet when a Corrales column appeared in this space shortly afterward, readers responded viscerally.
Some wanted to watch the fight for themselves because many missed it. And some were revolted, said boxing should be banned and cited this fight as a prime example of why.
They have a point. Boxing can bring out the worst in us, exploits fighters and often pits unprepared stiffs with skilled sociopaths and calls it legitimate sport.
People get hurt, killed and cheated in boxing. Muhammad Ali used the sport as vehicle for history and social change, only to stay too long, to absorb too many punches to his exquisite head.
Now look at him. Or give a listen to his rival Joe Frazier or try to find Bobby Chacon on some desperate street corner somewhere. Or consider the human cataclysm that is Mike Tyson, who, reports would have us believe, is mulling a career in ****ography.
Makes sense.
So now we have Corrales, just two months removed from a beating few men have taken, and lined up for more.
It's hard to figure because talking to Corrales on Thursday by telephone, one is struck by the sweetness in his voice and by his genuine, regular-guy persona.
Try talking to any big-league player and get ready to be big-timed, but not "Chico." Just one call from his mom, Olga, who still lives in South Sac, and there he was on the phone - cheerful and ready to chat as long as you wanted.
"My biggest thing is to always be happy," Corrales said of his plans for the future. "I've worked my whole life for this."
It seems impossible that a guy this nice can be such a demon in the ring yet last May, his stepdad Ray Woods explained it this way: "When Chico gets hit, that's it. It's on."
A switch goes on in Corrales' head, something lethal is released, a dangerous trait in civilians but gold for a boxer.
"I think (Corrales) has great marketability," said Bert Sugar, the fabled boxing historian and recent inductee into the Boxing Hall of Fame. "Everyone knows he has dynamite in his fists and that always pays off in dollars."
Yes, the seven-figure paydays all fighters lust after are within Corrales' reach, but they come at a price.
An Oct. 8 rematch seems way too soon, considering the heavy toll Castillo's punches took on Corrales and vice versa.
"They each left pieces of themselves in the ring," Sugar said. "I don't think Corrales can have another fight like the last one and go forward."
Me, either. But there was Corrales at Wednesday's news conference, morphing into his alter ego and crowing: "I will assassinate you all" to Castillo and anyone who tries to take away what's his.
There was Corrales' mom, Olga Woods, hopeful in the face of pre-hype trashing talking. "It's nice to see that people are getting past all the other things and seeing Chico for who he is, in a different light."
Woods means her son's conviction and year-long prison term for physically beating his then-pregnant ex-wife five years ago.
"People are starting to see Chico at home with his family ... " Woods said. "He loves to do the fan thing, to take pictures with babies."
It is, in fact, the paradox of boxing: putting distance between beating a woman outside the ring by beating a man in the ring. Or is it the price of boxing? Becoming a name by putting your body in peril and then cashing in by putting your body in more peril.
"To be honest, I think (the Oct. 8 fight with Castillo) is really too soon. I don't think his body has had time to recoup," Woods said.
"I don't think I can go through that so I'll stay in Sacramento. It's much easier to hide and cry in my home than in a crowd of people."
As Woods spoke one felt guilt, a voyeur's remorse for taking pleasure from the pain of others. Yet the calender is marked for Oct. 8; I wouldn't miss it.
Is that called being a boxing fan or an enabler? Or is it the same thing?
This article is from www.sacbee.com the sacramento newspaper...
Ray Woods is always at my gym, gonna feel sorry for him when Chico gets pummeled..
Marcos Bretón: Corrales: You can't take your eyes off him
By Marcos Bretón -- Bee Columnist
Published 2:15 am PDT Friday, July 22, 2005
Story appeared in Sports section, Page C1
Diego Corrales is loaded in the chute, primed for the millions and maulings his trade of boxing metes out to those blessed and cursed with Corrales' gifts.
Gifts of rage. A taste for the jugular. An iron chin. It's all part of the same sweet and savage package in the 27-year-old South Sacramento kid who has gone to hell and back, to prison and back, to the canvas and back - always swinging and often connecting to devastating effect.
Corrales is famous now, can't kick back at home anymore, can't rest on his laurels.
He triumphed in the fight of the year - of the decade and maybe of all time - in his thrilling, engrossing 10-round knockout of José Luis Castillo last May in Las Vegas.
Knocked twice to the canvas in the 10th after nine brutal rounds - and seemingly out on his feet - Corrales tapped his singular wellspring of fury to bludgeon a good-as-won Castillo, snapping his head back like a chicken bone.
When Castillo's arms dropped to his side and his eyes rolled backward, Corrales was crowned the undisputed lightweight champion of the world.
What did it feel like to watch that fight? It was like watching something illicit, something your inner adult said you shouldn't enjoy yet did.
Yet when a Corrales column appeared in this space shortly afterward, readers responded viscerally.
Some wanted to watch the fight for themselves because many missed it. And some were revolted, said boxing should be banned and cited this fight as a prime example of why.
They have a point. Boxing can bring out the worst in us, exploits fighters and often pits unprepared stiffs with skilled sociopaths and calls it legitimate sport.
People get hurt, killed and cheated in boxing. Muhammad Ali used the sport as vehicle for history and social change, only to stay too long, to absorb too many punches to his exquisite head.
Now look at him. Or give a listen to his rival Joe Frazier or try to find Bobby Chacon on some desperate street corner somewhere. Or consider the human cataclysm that is Mike Tyson, who, reports would have us believe, is mulling a career in ****ography.
Makes sense.
So now we have Corrales, just two months removed from a beating few men have taken, and lined up for more.
It's hard to figure because talking to Corrales on Thursday by telephone, one is struck by the sweetness in his voice and by his genuine, regular-guy persona.
Try talking to any big-league player and get ready to be big-timed, but not "Chico." Just one call from his mom, Olga, who still lives in South Sac, and there he was on the phone - cheerful and ready to chat as long as you wanted.
"My biggest thing is to always be happy," Corrales said of his plans for the future. "I've worked my whole life for this."
It seems impossible that a guy this nice can be such a demon in the ring yet last May, his stepdad Ray Woods explained it this way: "When Chico gets hit, that's it. It's on."
A switch goes on in Corrales' head, something lethal is released, a dangerous trait in civilians but gold for a boxer.
"I think (Corrales) has great marketability," said Bert Sugar, the fabled boxing historian and recent inductee into the Boxing Hall of Fame. "Everyone knows he has dynamite in his fists and that always pays off in dollars."
Yes, the seven-figure paydays all fighters lust after are within Corrales' reach, but they come at a price.
An Oct. 8 rematch seems way too soon, considering the heavy toll Castillo's punches took on Corrales and vice versa.
"They each left pieces of themselves in the ring," Sugar said. "I don't think Corrales can have another fight like the last one and go forward."
Me, either. But there was Corrales at Wednesday's news conference, morphing into his alter ego and crowing: "I will assassinate you all" to Castillo and anyone who tries to take away what's his.
There was Corrales' mom, Olga Woods, hopeful in the face of pre-hype trashing talking. "It's nice to see that people are getting past all the other things and seeing Chico for who he is, in a different light."
Woods means her son's conviction and year-long prison term for physically beating his then-pregnant ex-wife five years ago.
"People are starting to see Chico at home with his family ... " Woods said. "He loves to do the fan thing, to take pictures with babies."
It is, in fact, the paradox of boxing: putting distance between beating a woman outside the ring by beating a man in the ring. Or is it the price of boxing? Becoming a name by putting your body in peril and then cashing in by putting your body in more peril.
"To be honest, I think (the Oct. 8 fight with Castillo) is really too soon. I don't think his body has had time to recoup," Woods said.
"I don't think I can go through that so I'll stay in Sacramento. It's much easier to hide and cry in my home than in a crowd of people."
As Woods spoke one felt guilt, a voyeur's remorse for taking pleasure from the pain of others. Yet the calender is marked for Oct. 8; I wouldn't miss it.
Is that called being a boxing fan or an enabler? Or is it the same thing?
This article is from www.sacbee.com the sacramento newspaper...
Ray Woods is always at my gym, gonna feel sorry for him when Chico gets pummeled..
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