GL: Can you give us some thought on Castillo-Corrales II? "It's the day after the fight and I've been sitting here reflecting and I'm actually more disappointed today than I was yesterday. I guess that's natural when everything settles down and you have some time to yourself. I'm not going to take anything away from Castillo, he hit Diego with a real good shot. Joe Cortez did a good job and it was a good stoppage. Joe Cortez counted to ten and when he stood up he fell back into the ropes. I have no problem with the stoppage or anything else. At the post-fight press conference, I thought it was rude of Bob Arum and Team Castillo to just get up and leave us there. Diego certainly didn't do that after the first fight and it would have been nice for Bob to make some comments about the rubbermatch and their thoughts on the rubbermatch.
"We have a contract for the third fight and we're going to exercise our option for it and they said they're going to honor that option. We have a rematch clause at 135, Diego is still the champion. I do believe what they did at the scales was shameful and the person on Castillo's team (Armando Barac) who placed his foot on the scale should be suspended for life, not just a few months. You could get someone seriously hurt that way and it can actually amount to murder. It's really no different than taking the stufffing out of a glove. I'm not so sure that this whole thing wasn't by design. Castillo probably weighed in at 140 or 141. I posted someone at the spa and they never went there to try to lose the weight. They didn't go a steam room, they didn't do any of that. Fernandao Beltran, to his credit, apologized for it thirty times, but it's really disrespectful to boxing and to the championship to come in that far overweight. I've never seen it."
GL: If Corrales wasn't a fighter making his first seven figure payday, would you have pulled out in most other cases?
Gary Shaw: "That's an excellent question. I reflect back if I did the right thing or not. Diego said he wanted the fight to go on, he didn't care what weight the fight was at. He said he was a warrior and it would be terrible for the fans if we pull out. How about the people who spent their hard earned money for tickets? How about the people who flew out here and paid for their hotel rooms just to watch the fight? We didn't want them to waste all their money. We thought it would have been so bad for boxing, so bad for the PPV and so bad for our fans that we went ahead with the fight. Castillo is really a lightweight. He just didn't put in the amount of work he knew needed to be put in to get there. The contract is the contract and we don't expect it to change. And I don't believe Bob (Arum) had anything to do with it, we're very pleased with Top Rank and everyone at Top Rank, this was something that had to do with Castillo. It would be like if nobody told me until the weigh-in and then we find out my fighter was overweight, but it was particularly shocking considering the caliber of fighters both Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo have proven themselves to be."
GL: Castillo might not be able to make 135 for a rubbermatch. If 135 is in the contract and he can't make that weight, are you concerned that Team Castillo won't go through with the third fight at lightweight?
Gary Shaw: "I know Castillo is hating us, James Prince and myself right now for some of the things we said before the fight and at the post-fight press conference. But he shouldn't hate us. Our job is to protect our fighter and to extract as much damage out of the oppositon as the rules allow. We believe there should be consequences to what he did because he never tried to make the weight. He never got there and after he weighed in the first time, he never tried. They cheated and they knew what they were doing because when they first came to the scale they tried to form a tight circle around the scale. If Castillo can't make 135 anymore, he should just let us know that he'd be more than happy to fight at 140 and we'll see what we can do. Other than that I believe the third fight will take place at 135."
GL: Immediately?
Gary Shaw: "Yes. We won't take another fight and they won't take another fight. That's what the contract calls for and we're going to honor that contract."
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW
Send questions and comments to: gleon@Boxingtalk.net