On May 7, 2007, the world of boxing fell silent in a state or mourning and shock as Diego "Chico" Corrales, one the boxing's greatest representatives was pronounced dead at approximatley 7:32pm. Appropriately-earned ten counts rang out all around the world for boxing's fallen warrior on the two-year anniversary of his greatest victory.  Boxing fans will forever remember my brother for the tenth round of his first fight against Jose Luis Castillo, and even casual fans will forever remember him for providing one of the greatest comebacks in the history of sports. Anybody who has ever seen that first Castillo fight, will never forget Chico going down twice only to come back and knockout his nemesis moments later. But two years later, also on May 7, Corrales would not rise to his feet to mount a comeback.

Diego was a throwback fighter, the type who would always put it all on the line. Boxing needs more guys with the Chico's temperment.

His passing was especially hard for the family: his father and original trainer, Ray Charles Woods, his mother Olga, his brothers Esteban "Steve" Corrales and Daryl Maze Woods as well as all five of his children.

Telling the story of boxing's true warrior spirit would prove difficult for anyone who ever had the pleasure to sit in the same room with him, It's even more difficult for a brother who would spend the next 4 1/2 years in a daze numb to the world and uninterested in a sport which was very much a staple in the Woods household, Diego Corrales's home. For me, it was like Superman was dead.

I remember the overwhelming anger I felt in the wake of his passing and having no one to blame other than the sport itself and the stresses that came along with it as the reason I no longer had my brother-- not Diego Corrales the fighter, but my brother Chico.

Learning to live without your brother is a day-by-day process. One day I sat in a sports bar nursing a beer and I looked up at the television and there was a boxing match on. As I focused in on the screen, I did not see a boxing match, not the world's Diego Corrales. Instead, I saw my brother and it seemed as if I was in a room alone giving directions to weave and counter, bobbing and moving my head as if the punches were being thrown at me.

I experienced boxing all over again as if it were the first time I watched my brother fight.  As the fight ended I slowly came out of my boxing trance with my heart racing, realizing the was a bar room full of thrilled fans cheering as if the fight were happening live.

Still, I walked away as not completely forgiving the sport of boxing for what we had all endured as a family throughout his career.

A year or so later I sat in a jailhouse dorm room with approximatley 30 other inmates in Placer County watching the Corrales vs Castillo fight on dorm television, and after shouting at an inmate to leave it on, he reluctantly did so.

The inmates of the Placer County jail and the officers were all settling in to watch. As the two went toe-to-toe as the fight progressed I watched the morale of the inmates and the jail transform into a boxing venue and a place of equality. Correctional officers came into the dorm sat in the imate seating and watched the fight. Again I got to experience boxing and all of it's greatness with my brother.

This was about the time the clouds above me finally began to break and in a dark room, I could see the sun finally hear my brother and all of the silly things he had said to me and the life lessons he had taught me. I came to the realization that life without boxing meant a life without my brother and all of what he had given not only the world of boxing but the entire world.

Diego Corrales the man that transcended the sport of boxing just as boxing before him transcended the world since it's creation and cultivation in modern society.

Diego Corrales  represents the long forgotten workman-like spirit of boxing. He made his warrior presence in the ring known and felt by all at a time for boxing when it seemedto be more about  money, poltiics and the well-planned for and coveted undefeated record.

I often sit in a room by myself watching old fight tapes. Some are of my brother, others are not of him, but I usually wind up in a pool of my own tears, not for the loss of my brother "Chico", but for what the sport of boxing has been reduced to due to the politics and petty bickering between promoters and managers who can't fight.