Casamayor Wins Rubber Match - Boxing News And Picks

Casamayor Wins Rubber Match
By Carlos Guzman
Posted: 3:00 am PDT 2006-10-11

It almost didn't happen. During the weigh-in the truth was revealed --bulky Diego Corrales came in 5 pounds over the weight limit. Lord have mercy! The same guy that took Jose Luis Castillo to court for not making weight for their fight disgraced the sport by doing the same thing!

Recently the WBC, which should partially be held liable for this incident, tried to cover its tracks by making this statement:

"Joel Casamayor presented the corresponding requirements on the corresponding dates. Diego Corrales did not comply with the 30-day weigh-in, and the WBC sent a representative, Rudy Tellez, to weigh him in only 10 days before the bout, where Diego was found to weigh 144 pounds."

If they knew this 10 days out, what made them believe he could lose 9 pounds in 10 days? Why wasn't anybody warned? I'm starting to wonder why we even have commissions.

As much as I wanted to hate Corrales, during an interview with Jim Gray of Showtime, Diego responded well to all of his questions. Gray revealed that with all of the money Diego lost that night (due to fines, etc.) he was basically fighting Casamayor for free. Corrales retorted:

"Yes, I am basically fighting for free but this is my job. I love it. The fans came to see a fight, I trained for a fight, there is going to be a fight"

But in reality what it did prove is that Casamayor is braver then Corrales. After all, Corrales refused to take the fight with Castillo because of the weight issue and opted to sue him. Casamayor didn't care --he wanted this fight bad.

Too bad both men didn't fight like they wanted it bad. For a moment I thought they were doing the waltz. It was terrible. Corrales couldn't fight because he had not eaten in three days to try to make weight. He was basically a corpse with gloves.

Casamayor was simply content to fight from the outside and pot-shot Corrales. It had me flipping back and forth between the HBO and Showtime telecast (HBO was showing Valuev-Barrett)

The scores came down as follows:

114-113 Corrales
115-112 Casamayor
116-111 Casamayor

David Diaz, the WBC interim lightweight champion, quickly called out Casamayor: "I congratulate Joel on his win over Diego, they both fought well and it was a very close fight. Joel now has the WBC lightweight belt and I'm ready to fight him."
"I've been back in the gym now for a few weeks and as soon as we set a date, I'll dial it up."

Laila Ali-Shelley Burton on Nov. 11 Following in the iconic footsteps of her legendary father Muhammad Ali, who graced the Garden's ring in 8 epic battles, WBC super middleweight world champion Laila Ali will make her MSG debut. Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions announced that Laila will be defending her title against No. 3 ranked Shelley Burton.

"I am looking forward to fighting Laila Ali in Madison Square Garden, this is the opportunity of a lifetime and what I have trained my entire career for," said Burton (8-2).

The only problem I see with this bout is that Laila is basically a light-heavyweight and Burton is a middleweight. Only in women's boxing would they allow this fight to even be staged. This fight should be stopped.

Online Boxing Betting Sites