Kieran Mulvaney was part of Team Tiger covering the Corrales-Casamayor event in Sunny Las Vegas. Here is his three day journal….
Thursday, Oct. 5
It’s 1 a.m., and I find myself dragging my body into my hotel room far too late at night. For the second time in a row, my flight to Las Vegas was delayed two hours — after I’d boarded the plane. Two flights in succession that packed us all on board, closed the door and then kept us there.
Someone remind me again why I moved from Las Vegas in the first place?
Oh yeah, right. I get paid more money in the nation’s capital than I did in Sin City.
Despite being tired from a long journey and the lateness of the hour, I can’t fall asleep at first, and stare blankly at CNN and SportsCenter until about 3. Even so, evidently I’m still on east coast time, because I’m awake a few hours later, and I’m at the credentials desk before it’s even open.
It’s cruel and unusual punishment: The media center, complete with free coffee and breakfast, is open, but I can’t get in there until I can pick up my temporary credential. While I wait, I’m actually forced to buy my own coffee at Starbucks. Oh, the humanity!
When I eventually make it into the media room, next to the arena in the bowels of the Mandalay Bay, I fight my way past the tumbleweeds and find a spot to work. It’s soon clear that the media presence at his fight is mightily limited indeed. It’s baseball playoff time, it’s football season, and there’s another card in Chicago which, for some reason, seems to be attracting the bulk of the writers from east of the Mississippi.
That becomes even more apparent at the final pre-fight press conference (complete, of course, with free food). There are enough people in attendance, but most of them are members of fighters\’ camps, or otherwise associated with the promotion. There are some local websites, of course, and some local TV. But the only two deadline print journalists are myself and Kevin Iole of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
On the dais, Casamayor is animated, Corrales relatively calm. Casamayor’s mood is not helped by James Prince, Corrales’ manager, promising the Cuban exile a “Fidel Castro ass-whupping” as punishment for his fleeing the island. Casamayor and manager Luis DeCubas go nuts, and Casamayor directs insults toward Prince that are entirely understandable if not suitable for reproduction in a family website.
Sure, it makes press conferences more interesting, but personally, I think it’s BS when managers and others who are in no danger of actually gloving up talk smack and provoke their fighters’ opponents. Prince is one of the worst offenders.
After the formalities, while Kevin and I are talking to Diego and Joel, Casamayor is still worked up. “I’m going to retire him,” he spits of Corrales. He makes it clear that the big source of his agitation is the fact that it has taken so long to secure a third fight with Corrales, especially since Casamayor granted him a rematch within five months the first time around.
Diego seems, on reflection, almost strangely serene. And he is oddly elusive when Kevin asks him how easily he made weight. Not that either of us picked up on it at the time.
But then, hindsight is 20/20.
Friday, Oct.6
Not so long ago, I made myself a promise.
I would never again waste my time at a big-fight weigh-in.
Weigh-ins were nothing but a bunch of posing and posturing, followed by professional athletes doing what professional athletes do, and proving that they had fine-tuned their bodies by showing up at exactly the right weight. It was pointless sitting through that rigmarole every time. There was never any news value in it. But, I said to myself, I would at least go to one final weigh-in, the one for the fight I was covering at the time.
That fight was Diego Corrales-Jose Luis Castillo II.
I didn’t think weigh-ins could get much more dramatic and controversial than that.
But then came Diego Corrales-Jose Luis Castillo III.
I didn’t think weigh-ins could get much more dramatic and controversial than that.
But, just to be safe, I feel the need to be around today. I have a strange feeling something just might happen.
Wayne and Cheryl McCullough have invited me to their house for the afternoon, but when I apologize that I need to be around the Mandalay Bay, we reach a compromise. I’ll head out earlier, and we’ll all drive back together for the weigh-in.
Wayne is building a reputation as an up-and-coming trainer, and two of his fighters are working out in his gym today — middleweight prospect Enrique Ornelas, and his brother, super-middleweight Librado Andrade. Enrique is training for a fight with Sam Soliman on November 17, and Librado, the WBC No.1-ranked super middleweight, is coming off a first-round blowout of normally durable Richard Grant. We talk about that fight, and Wayne puts the brothers through their motions. And we joke how, based on their performances so far, the skills Librado and Enrique have picked up from Wayne are defense and knockout power. Who would have guessed?
After a couple of hours, we drive back to the Mandalay, and we’ve been sitting in the Coral Reef Lounge only a few minutes when Wayne turns to me with a rumor he’s just picked up.
“Diego isn’t going to make weight”
It seems hugely improbable, not least for ironic reasons, so I go looking for confirmation. I approach a friend, who is kind of an associate member of the Corrales camp. Before I say anything, he looks at me ashen-faced, and right then I know it’s true.
“It’s going to be close,” he says. “Real close.” The night before, he reveals, Corrales had been five pounds over. He had been in the sauna until 1a.m., and hadn’t even been able to produce a sweat, so completely was he dried out already. He left the sauna weighing 140.5.
Then Diego comes to the scale, and, despite his efforts to suck in his stomach, stand on his toes, and pretend nothing is untoward, weighs 140. He fusses around while Joe Goossen complains the scale actually reads more like 139.75, strips completely naked and weighs in officially at 139?. Casamayor’s people insist that he make 135 or the fight is off. Then they relent, and make it clear that if the fight is to proceed, they want to extract their maximum poundage of flesh. Nevada commission officials reveal that it is probable Diego will be fined 20 percent of his purse, or $240,000, with $120,000 of that going to Casamayor.
Would the fact that Corrales had ripped the commission for its punishment of Castillo — despite the fact that it levied the maximum possible fine permissible by Nevada law, and had suspended him for the rest of the year — affect the way in which it considered Corrales’ case? Commissioner Tony Alamo Jr. and executive director Keith Kizer both strive to emphasize that they would view the situation on the merits of the case. But, confesses Alamo, “We’re only human.” Kizer does briefly smile at the irony of the situation, “There’s a certain poetic justice, one could say.”
Two hours after his first attempt, Corrales returns. He has been able to shave an extra half-pound, and no more. The two camps huddle to discuss what to do. Prince looks as if he’s in shock. He speaks as if he is in shock, too. Corrales sits on the side of the stage, sipping energy drinks. At one point, his face crumples and he begins to cry.
Jimmy Lennon Jr. steps to the microphone to announce Diego’s new weight. In yet another moment of perfect irony, he at first misspeaks, calling Corrales “Diego Chico Castillo.” Ouch.
Corrales looks hurt and disbelieving, and his head slumps.
Saturday Oct. 7
The day begins with a Top Rank media brunch to drum up further attention for the Dec. 2 Atlantic City card, headlined by Antonio Margarito vs. Joshua Clottey for the WBO welterweight championship, and Miguel Cotto against Carlos Quintana.
I’m seated with Robert Morales of the L.A. Daily News next to Margarito, and as Top Rank’s Ricardo Jiminez interprets, we ask him a few questions. Margarito is open, accommodating, and clearly a genuinely nice guy — as are, for that matter, the vast majority of boxers I’ve met, including Clottey, who is appropriately respectful of the defending champ even while asserting his intention to win the title.
After the brunch, it’s back to kicking around the media room for a while, and after unfortunately being cornered by one of the more persistently annoying members of the Internet boxing corps, who complains to me about his seating location — as if I can do anything about it — I escape back to my computer, which is where I’m sitting when Chris DeBlasio of Showtime asks if I could be one of the press row judges for tonight’s telecast. At last, I think, my brilliance is being recognized. And then I remember that there really aren’t too many journalists for him to choose from.
I take my seat for the undercard, which contains relatively few fights, but, all of them 10- or 12-rounders. I move up to the Showtime table for the live broadcast, along with my fellow press row scorers Jeff Haney and James Smith.
Our first bout is the co-main between Glenn Donaire and IBF flyweight champ Vic Darchinyan. I have never seen Darchinyan fight before, and I’ve been promised that he’s as exciting as he is unorthodox. And sure enough, I’ve never seen anything like him in my life. He advances like some kind of killer crab, launching southpaw lefts from miles away. Despite being telegraphed, they are deadly accurate and thudding, and Donaire soon looks overwhelmed. By the sixth, it’s becoming apparent that this is a mismatch, with Donaire unable to escape Darchinyan’s punches and unable to break through the Armenian-Australian’s surprisingly effective defense.
Even so, the end is a surprise, and a confusing one.
After taking a left hand to the jaw, Donaire walks away toward his corner, apparently saying enough is enough. And yet, even though the young Filipino has apparently quit, referee Tony Weeks doesn’t wave it over, instead calling time out and escorting Donaire to the ringside physician, after which the bout is waved off. In the confusion, it turns out that Donaire feels his jaw has been broken by an elbow landed in round four, and so the fight goes to the scorecards. It’s a formality, all three official judges agreeing with the three of us scoring unofficially for Showtime, in seeing a clean sweep for the defending champ.
Well, that was easy. Somehow, however, I have a suspicion the main event won’t be quite as simple to score.
Actually, as it turns out, for most of the ringside media, and indeed for the Cuban cheering section seated by Casamayor’s corner, it turns out to be relatively straightforward. At the end of the night, the ringside consensus is that Casamayor has won by at least three points, with some folks giving it to him by four or even five. I have it closer, squeaking it to Casamayor by a point, but I nearly score it for Corrales by the same amount.
The fight is made to seem a lot closer than perhaps it is by the knockdown in round five. Casamayor is winning that round until Corrales cuffs him and he goes down; however genuine the knockdown — and Casamayor protests vehemently, claiming it was a slip-shove — the fact that ref Kenny Bayless says it’s a knockdown means it is in fact a knockdown, and a 10-9 Casamayor round becomes a 10-8 frame for Corrales.
Jeff, Smitty and I score the first 11 rounds all the same, except for two rounds, which they both score for Casamayor but I give to Corrales. As a result, they have the Cuban up by three points going into the championship round, and I have Diego leading by one. Iole turns to ask me how I have it; when I tell him, he shakes his head and points to his heart, suggesting I’m using that, and not my head.
I hope not. I think not. I just happen to think that some of the rounds have been fairly close, more because of the fact that each man is doing so much but because neither is doing much of anything. It’s the classic case of two old, past-the-prime fighters seeing openings but unable to capitalize on them, and although Casamayor winds up with the split-decision victory, it feels less dramatic than might once have been the case, had they, as Casamayor had wanted, fought their rubber match two years ago.
I score the fight 114-113 for Casamayor; Smitty scores it 115-112, and Jeff sees it as 116-111. I rush away from my unofficial scorer’s table to file my report, and as I settle into my seat, Lennon announces the official scores, which almost exactly reflect the Showtime panel, except the 114-113 score is for Corrales, not Casamayor.
Joel’s victory is appreciated by those of us at the end of Media Row B, which is perilously close to a crowd of Cubans that seemed certain to erupt in anger if the decision had gone against their man. We all finish filing at around the same time, at the end of the walk-out bout, and after a cursory investigation of an uneventful post-fight press conference, begin to go our separate ways.
I look at the time. It’s 9:30. Still early, but all I want to do is go back to my room, down a quick brew, and go to sleep. Tomorrow, I can start planning for the next trip. Hopefully, next time, the plane will leave on time.
