Mayweather vs De La Hoya – Countdown to May 5

‘Trophy Scalps’

By Suzanne Nield

Floyd Mayweather Jnr v Diego Corrales
20 January 2001 MGM Grand, Las Vegas

Corrales was a two-time world title holder coming into the bout at 33-0, 27 inside. Pretty Boy, at 24-0 with 18 kayos, was making his sixth defence of the WBC super-feather title taken from Genaro Hernandez. Corrales gained 16 pounds between the weigh-in and the ring while Floyd was on the button.

Pretty Boy entered to custom-made rap music, prompting the comment from HBO’s Larry Merchant that, ‘Sometimes fighters come in with these hard edged rap lyrics and they fight like the sound of music or Britney Spears.’ By the end of the night, however, Harold Lederman was saying, ‘I don’t think I’ve seen an exhibition of boxing like this since Willie Pep.’ It was sometimes said of Pep that, if you listened closely, you would hear music as you watched. It wasn’t Britney.

Floyd’s work in this fight was an executive masterpiece. He spent the first round knocking the wind out of his opponent with a stabbing jab to the pit of the stomach, likened by George Foreman to a syringe sucking all the juice out of Corrales. In the second , Floyd concentrated on the head, his main scoring punch an overhand right with some weight behind it, sometimes used to set up a left hook. Then in the third, Floyd’s combinations started to fly, the timing and workrate calculated to frustrate and confuse.

Corrales had come in prepared to lose the opening rounds, but his plan was to hit Floyd anywhere and everywhere, to slow him down and soften him up for later. However, he was only given the chance to land single shots, and those chances became fewer as Floyd’s rhythm began to flow. Whenever he got lose enough to land, Floyd paid him back in spades. He was just too fast.

Pretty Boy boxed another brilliant round in the fifth, constantly moving, making Corrales miss badly, landing with ease himself. In these initial stanzas, Floyd’s plan was mainly to inflict psychological damage. But then at the close of the sixth, he landed a huge left hook to the head, rocking Corrales to his boots.

It was a taste of things to come. Opening the seventh, another surprise left put Diego on the canvas for the first time in his professional career. Floyd was patient – he didn’t try to rush things. Now, however, he began to put together more adventurous sequences – a left upstairs and then down to the short rib, followed by more aggressive right hooks to the head and a long right to take Corrales’ head back. This was a ghastly round for Diego – in the final minute he went down again from another left hook. After the count, Floyd poured it on with a barrage, and this time it was a right uppercut that floored Corrales. He made it out of the round, beating the count before the bell.

‘I’m going to stop this fight if you don’t throw punches,’ warned Miguel Diaz in his corner. (Diaz had worked for Mayweather before being offered a more lucrative post as co-trainer on the Corrales team. He said Floyd was a real gentleman about it.)

Diego’s legs were still unsteady going into the next round. He stumbled in the opening seconds, ruled a slip, and was missing with wild left hooks. The comment from the HBO team was that he was about to set an embarrassing CompuBox record, landing in single digits for eight rounds on the trot. Into the ninth, Floyd cracked out another left hook to put Corrales in slow motion, followed by consecutive overhand rights. His speed was otherworldly. Corrales rallied to get in a right to the head, and landed a good body shot as he backed Floyd up momentarily, but Mayweather slipped away. Once again, Diego went down on a slip. He looked shot as he told his corner, ‘I’m giving you guys everything I’ve got.’

Opening the tenth, Floyd pushed Corrales down blatantly. Referee Richard Steele should have taken a point. Then a legitimate left hook did the flooring – not a heavy punch, Corrales just had nothing left in the tank. It seemed pointless to continue, but Corrales beat the count again – only for Floyd to pounce, battering him down with a double right hook. It was the fifth knockdown, and Corrales’ stepfather Ray Woods threw in the towel at 2 minutes 19 seconds of the tenth round. Punchstats showed that Floyd landed 220 shots to Diego’s 60 during the fight.

Corrales was devastated, and livid about the stoppage. He felt he deserved to complete the last two rounds. Richard Steele had to hold him to prevent him attacking his stepfather. It was actually Floyd who stepped in to try to soothe him. There had been a lot of trash talking before the fight, but Pretty Boy said it was time to leave that behind. He told Diego that he respected him as a fighter and they should both get on with their careers.

Interviewed by Larry Merchant after the fight, Corrales was emotional. He said that he hadn’t planned on a loss, that it would be very hard to rebound from. Merchant made the sensible suggestion that he may be better off at lightweight. In that division Corrales notably handed Acelino Freitas his first loss and defeated Castillo in their original meeting.

Floyd defended his super-feather title twice more before moving up a division to tackle Castillo for the lightweight version.

More of that in ‘Controversy’, coming next.