The Real “Fight of the Century” Remains Corrales-Castillo I

Published

9 years ago

May 7, 2015

Forget the hype. Forget what you were told. Forget even what you know, or think you know. Not to disparage Mayweather-Pacquiao, which is the undisputed revenue-producing champion of all time, but the real “Fight of the Century” remains the classic first pairing of lightweight champions Diego “Chico” Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo. Their epic unification clash on May 7, 2005, at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas was so riveting that many consider it to be the greatest boxing match of all time.

Such an assertion might or might not be considered true, as there are always disparities in individual perception. There is no algorithm to pinpoint which treasured fight in ring history indisputably deserves to be at the very top of that figurative mountain. But while the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was relayed to the International Space Station to be viewed by U.S. astronauts at their leisure, Corrales-Castillo I, won by Corrales on a 10th-round stoppage only moments after it appeared he was on the verge of being taken out himself, is what we would want communicated throughout the galaxy to show other intelligent life forms, if indeed there are any, that inhabitants of Earth are incredibly tough, courageous and not to be messed with.

“You can vote now,” Gary Shaw, Corrales’ promoter, said at the postfight press conference a decade ago. “This is Fight of the Year, Fight of Next Year, Fight of the Decade. I don’t believe you’ll ever see anything like this again.”

There have, of course, been some excellent bouts since Corrales and Castillo took each other to hell and back. But in the 10 years that have passed, Shaw and others who were fortunate enough to have been eyewitnesses that amazing night haven’t had cause to rate any fight higher for drama and gut-wrenching excitement.

“Oh, it was a great fight. A spectacular fight,” Shaw told me a few days ago. “But that was Corrales. He always said that they would have to carry him out of the ring before he’d ever stop fighting. He was the ultimate never-give-up guy.

“I actually thought the fight was going to be over in that 10th round. Diego had gone down a second time and was on his hands and knees. I was thinking as a promoter would, `What am I going to say at the press conference? How am I going to bring Diego back?’ The next thing I knew, I had almost an out-of-body experience. When I looked up, Castillo was sagging against the ropes and the referee (Tony Weeks) was waving the fight off. Incredible.”

Said referee Tony Weeks, who drew the assignment as third man in the ring: “That fight definitely is the highlight of my career. It will go down in history. It is history. And those guy guys, Corrales and Castillo, made me a part of that history. I’m forever indebted to them. They epitomized what true champions are.”

As amazing rallies go, Corrales’ comeback from the brink was like a baseball team that was six runs down with two outs and the bases empty in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 7 of the World Series somehow pulling out the victory. If such a stark momentum shift in a boxing match can be equated to a miracle, well, this was it.

“In the 10th round, Castillo nailed Corrales with a left hook and he went down,” Weeks recalled. “There was the mouthpiece issue, of course. (More on that a bit later.) Corrales got up and he seemed to be OK, so I let things go on and, boom, he goes down again. At this point I’m thinking it’s a brutal fight, I might have to stop it if he goes down another time. But, somehow, Corrales was able to turn the tables. If you look at the film, you can see my focus shift from Corrales to Castillo.

“It was unbelievable, and it all happened so fast. One minute I’m counting over Corrales and the next minute I’m stopping the fight with Castillo out on his feet.”

As is often the case with any story that has a rich vein of silver linings, there are dark clouds of controversy and even tragedy that stick to Corrales-Castillo I like lint on a Velcro brush. Jay Larkin, the Showtime boxing boss who was instrumental I making the fight, was ousted from the position he had held for 21 years later in 2005. He was 59 when he died, after a lengthy battle with brain cancer, on Aug. 9, 2010. Corrales was never the same after that first go-round with Castillo; he lost his final three bouts, including the rematch, retired and, inebriated and reportedly despondent , he died in a motorcycle crash in Las Vegas on May 7,2007 – two years to the day after the signature victory of a praiseworthy career in which he went 40-5, with 33 wins inside the distance.

“When I received the news (of Corrales’ death), I was devastated,” Weeks said. “I couldn’t believe it. For it to happen on that particular date … that was devastating. I got to know Corrales through boxing, in the ring and out of the ring. He was a real nice guy, a real likable guy. He would always cater to the public as far as giving autographs and taking pictures with fans. You would never think he was such a fierce warrior if you met him outside of the ring.”

More so than most, I have a deep connection to Corrales-Castillo I because, in some small way, I feel like I helped make it happen. I was the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America in 2005, and it was my decision, at the suggestion of Las Vegas-based writer Kevin Iole, to bring the 80th annual BWAA Awards Dinner to the Strip for the first time after many years of it being staged exclusively on the East Coast, most often in New York.

As part of the process of transforming that plan into a reality, I contacted officials at both Showtime and HBO and said the event could only be staged in Las Vegas if it was in conjunction with a major fight the following night. I gave a list of preferred dates to both premium cable networks and told them, basically, that we’d partner up with whichever stepped up first.

Larkin clearly was on board. “We very much want to be involved,” he told me, “and I’m prepared to go a half-million dollars over our normal budget for a Showtime Championship Boxing telecast to make it happen.”

What he delivered was a showdown between Corrales, the WBO lightweight champion, and Castillo, who held the WBC title. It was an attractive fight, given the reputations of both fighters, but it wasn’t a megafight. In fact, the announced attendance that night in the Mandalay Bay Events Center was 5,100, well short of capacity, although the correct figure is probably somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000.

To my way of thinking, anything good that took place on May 7 was gravy. The BWAA Awards Dinner, thanks in large part to Mandalay Bay public relations director Gordon Absher, who was instrumental in the event selling out with a celebrity guest list that included, among others, Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Bernard Hopkins, Vitali Klitschko, Winky Wright, James Toney, Shane Mosley, Chris Byrd, Hasim Rahman, Lamon Brewster, Erik Morales, Glen Johnson, Wayne McCullough, Jeff Lacy, Zab Judah, Kevin Kelly and Richie Sandoval.

But the BWAA Awards Dinner, star-studded as it was, merely served as an appetizer to the real main event the following night. Corrales and Castillo hurled themselves at one another with uncommon fury from the opening bell. The exchanges were frequent and torrid, clinches rare, and the ebb and flow suggested something lifted from a WWE script. It was obvious seconds into Round 1 that those spectators who were fortunate enough to be in the arena, and the Showtime viewing audience, were witnessing an instant classic.

The toll of the punishment being dished out both ways soon became apparent, most noticeably on Corrales’ face, which was a gargoyle mask with angry, purplish lumps under each eye. He later described them as “marbles, big, hard marbles.” And as those marbles enlarged, a curtain was slowly being drawn across the slits his battered eyes had become.

Asked afterward if he was concerned about his diminishing field of vision, Corrales, well, lied. Distorting reality is something desperate fighters do to buy extra time from a referee or a ring physician upon whose judgment their further participation in a bout hinges.

“It’s not my job to worry about swelling,” he said of the mouses that had become rat-sized, offering still another magnificent prevarication. “It’s not my job to worry about knockdowns. It’s not my job to worry about anything that might hinder me. It’s the corner’s job to worry about those things. It’s my job to fight.”

Make no mistake, Corrales’ trainer, Joe Goossen, was fretting enough for the entire corner team. And what he told his fighter, or what Corrales decided on his own, might have proved the difference between a spectacular, back-from-the-brink victory and near-certain defeat.

In his most notable fight prior to his trench war with Castillo, Corrales had wrested the WBO 135-pound title from Brazil’s Acelino Freitas on a 10th-round TKO on Aug. 7, 2004, in Mashantucket, Conn. It did not escape Corrales’ attention that, whenever Freitas appeared to be in real trouble, he would “accidentally” lose his mouthpiece, obliging referee Mike Ortega to call time to have it rinsed off. A slick ploy, but one that ultimately did not prevent Freitas’ championship from changing hands.

Twenty-five seconds into Round 10, Castillo landed flush with a left hook that sent Corrales crashing to the canvas. His mouthpiece was dislodged by the shot, which probably was done legitimately, but Corrales – who had demonstrated remarkable recuperative powers throughout his career, in which he previously had been decked eight times – got precious additional seconds of recovery time.

The second knockdown, also from a left hook, had “Chico’s” chances of winning hanging by a slender thread. Even before Weeks reached a count of nine, a clearly buzzed Corrales removed his mouthpiece, apparently intentionally.

“The first time it came out, it came out by itself,” Corrales said. “The second time, I took it out to breathe. But I didn’t drop it on purpose.”

Weeks deducted a point from Corrales for intentionally spitting out the mouthpiece and directed him to his corner, where Goossen took his sweet time in rinsing it off and re-inserting it. When Corrales turned to face Castillo again, 28 seconds had elapsed.

Would Corrales have been stopped without the break in the action? Possibly. But Corrales, still in desperate straits, got there first with an overhand right, which he followed up with a barrage of blows, driving the Mexican back against the ropes, his head vibrating like it was on a swivel. Weeks believed he had no choice but to step in and wave things off at the 2:06 mark.

At the time of the stoppage, Corrales led, 87-84 and 86-85, on the scorecards of judge Lou Moret and Daniel Van de Wiele, with Castilo up, 87-84, on Paul Smith’s card.

“Castillo was naked,” Weeks said of the stoppage. “He was being hit with bombs. He went limp. He was unable to defend himself. He was out on his feet. His eyes rolled back, his arms were at his sides. I had to stop it.”

Not surprisingly, Top Rank CEO Bob Arum, who promoted Castillo, went ballistic.

“Forget the Long Count (in Dempsey-Tunney II),” Arum fumed. “Twenty-eight seconds. Nearly half a minute. If Jose Luis had spit out his mouthpiece, maybe he would have gotten 28 seconds (to recuperate).”

Shaw, of course, saw things differently.

“There’s nothing worse than taking away from a night like this,” he said. “This fight cannot be sullied by controversy.”

For his part, Weeks stands by his decision to allow Corrales enough time to have his mouthpiece rinsed and re-inserted, a ruling which was in accordance with Nevada State Athletic Commission rules, according to Marc Ratner, then the NSAC executive director.

“I would not do anything differently,” insisted Weeks, one of boxing’s best referees. “The first time (the mouthpiece came out), I didn’t see Corrales spit it out. Even the second time, I didn’t see it. But it was out, so the second time I thought, `We got a situation here.’ The appropriate thing was to deduct a point, which I did.”

Maybe Shaw is correct; the mouthpiece controversy doesn’t seem quite as big a deal now, maybe because the action was so indelibly printed on the minds of all that were privileged to have seen one of the great prizefights of all time. Fifteen years into the 21st century, there still hasn’t been anything to quite match it, not even the Gatti-Ward troika and, money considerations aside, not Mayweather-Pacquiao.

“The thing that bothers me the most (about the May-Pac fight) is they made it about money, instead of what a great fight really should be about,” he said. “I have a lot of mixed emotions about Saturday night in relation to Corrales-Castillo because those guys didn’t get anywhere near the money that Mayweather and Pacquiao got. But they were the ones who fought their hearts out and put everything on the line. Mayweather and Pacquiao didn’t, in my estimation.”

The measure of what Corrales-Castillo I was is the fact that it remains a measuring stick against which other fights are judged. Prior to junior welterweight Lucas Matthysse’s 12-round, majority decision over Ruslan Provodnikov on April 18 in Verona, N.Y., Provodnikov’s promoter, Art Pelullo, raised the possibility of a reasonable facsimile of May7, 2005, again taking place.

“I believe it’s going to be Corrales-Castillo I,” Pelullo opined. It wasn’t, but it is indicative of just how special a fight that was that boxing people still bring it up with a reverence that Mayweather-Pacquiao dwarfed in revenues generated but not where it counts, inside the ropes.

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Bernard Fernandez

Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

7 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to liver the from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round time. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

2 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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In a Shocker, Ryan Garcia Confounds the Experts and Upsets Devin Haney

Published

4 days ago

April 21, 2024

David A. Avila

In-a-Shocker-Ryan-Garcia-Confounds-the-Experts-and-Upsets-Devin-Haney

Its good to be crazy. Like a fox.

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia knocked down WBC super lightweight titlist Devin Haney three times to remind everyone of his fighting abilities in winning by majority decision on Saturday.

“I just knew what I could do,” Garcia said.

Fans will not forget the lanky kid from Victorville, California now.

Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) fooled everyone in playing crazy weeks before the fight, then showed shocking power to hand Haney (30-1, 15 KOs) his first loss as a professional at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Haney’s WBC super lightweight title was not at stake for Garcia because he weighed three pounds over the limit.

After Garcia seemingly acting out of control on social media, Haney’s guard must have slipped in the first round during the first few seconds as Garcia connected with that hellish left hook and Haney, with a look of shock in his eyes, almost went down. He barely survived the first round.

“He caught me with it,” said Haney.

During the next few rounds, Haney proceeded to advance toward Garcia seemingly fully aware of the lethal left hook. He used feints and rights to score with a busier approach as Garcia seemed cocked and ready to counter with a left hook.

In the fourth round it seemed Haney was confident he had regained control of the fight, but every time he opened up with more than a two-punch combination Garcia reminded him whose hands were faster and more dangerous.

Though Garcia seldom jabbed he seemed bent on looking for the right moment to unleash his deadly left hook. And every time the Southern California fighter opened up with a combination he scored and Haney dare not exchange.

A few times Haney smiled as if signifying he escaped.

In the seventh round Haney looked to punish Garcia’s body and instead was met with a three-punch combination included a left hook to the chin and down went Haney slumped on the ground. He managed to beat the count and as soon as Garcia came within reach Haney wrapped his arms around him with a python grip. Despite the warnings by referee Harvey Dock, the fallen fighter would not release and Garcia impatiently fired a weak punch during the break. The referee deducted a point from Garcia though he could have deducted a point from Haney for not obeying his instructions to release his hold. Haney actually went down three times in the round but only one was counted by the referee.

From that point on Haney was very cautious but still looking to win by decision.

Though Garcia kept using a shoulder-roll defense that left his body exposed, he would retaliate with three and four punch combinations that usually Haney could defend against other fighters.. But Garcia’s blazing combinations were too fast to defend.

In the 10^th round Haney looked to attack and was countered by Garcia’s right and a blinding left hook to the chin and another two blows that sent the former undisputed lightweight champion to the floor again.

It didn’t look good for Haney to survive.

Garcia walked into the 11^th round still composed and never out-of-control He dared Haney to exchange and when within striking distance Garcia unleashed another lightning combination and down went Haney again with a defeated look.

Both fighters had fought each other as amateurs six times so there were no surprises between them. But Garcia’s power and speed were superior and that was the difference in a professional fight.

In the final round both were cautious with Garcia’s combination punching proving too dangerous for Haney to open up. Garcia celebrated early as the round ended confident of victory.

After 12 rounds Garcia was seen the victor by majority decision 112-112, 114-110, 115-109.

“You really thought I was crazy,” Garcia told the interviewer and the crowd. “You guys hated on me.”

Other Bouts

Arnold Barboza (30-0) won a curious split decision victory over United Kingdom’s Sean McComb (18-2) in a 10-round super lightweight fight. McComb’s long reach and busy southpaw style gave Barboza trouble. But he managed to win the fight though the crowd was not pleased.

Bektemir Melikuziev (14-1, 10 KOs) defeated France’s Pierre Dibombe (22-1-1) by technical decision after eight rounds due to a cut on his eye from an accidental head butt. It was a very competitive super middleweight fight.

Costa Rica’s David Jimenez (16-1, 11 KOs) outworked John “Scrappy Ramirez (13-1, 9 KOs) in a 12-round scrap to upset the Los Angeles based fighter. After a few close rounds Jimenez simply bullied his way inside and forced Ramirez against the ropes and unloaded his guns.

After 12 rounds two judges saw it 117-111 and 116-114 all for Jimenez.

“I’m a hard-working man from Cartago I come from nothing,” said Jimenez. “My corner told me I had to work inside.”

Charles Conwell (19-0, 14 KOs) stepped on the gas early with vicious body shots and uppercuts and blasted through the resilient Nathaniel Gallimore (22-8-1, 17 KOs) for several rounds. After a brutal fifth and sixth round the referee halted the one-side beating in favor of Conwell who was fighting for the first time under the Golden Boy banner.

Another winner was Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-5) by decision over Vaughn Alexander (18-11-1) in a super middleweight match.

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