REMATCH OR REPEAT - “MAYWEATHER VS CASTILLO II
By Ron Brashear
Inside Boxing Writer/Columnist
Photo: Rene Martinez/InsideBoxing.com
LAS VEGAS, NV (IB - December 5, 2002) - As part of a boxing double-header scheduled for Saturday night December 7th, and Televised on HBO live from Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV, the first fight will be the rematch between “Pretty Boy” Floyd Mayweather Jr. (28-0, 20 KOs) and Jose Luis Castillo (46-5-1, 42 KOs) for the WBC World Lightweight Championship.
If you recall their first encounter back on April 20th, 2002, it resulted in a unanimous 12 round decision win for Mayweather and a lot of observers felt the decision was inappropriate. It wasn’t just that the fight appeared very close with Castillo holding his own, even the Compubox stats indicated that Castillo was the busier fighter, as well as the more accurate punching fighter.
Well unfortunately, that was then and this is now. As we have become accustomed to rematches, we will see that once again, the fighter that can make the necessary adjustments will make the rematch a totally different experience.
Given the fact, that “Pretty Boy” Floyd is arguably one of, if not, the best P4P fighters in the business today, I would expect that he will be the one that makes the necessary adjustments and this fight will not be as competitive as their 1st encounter.
This is what TRUE Champions do! They run up against adversity, and then they
prevail. One adjustment Mayweather has already made that is creating a buzz in
Las Vegas is that he failed to show up for the final press conference today.
Roger Mayweather, the Uncle and trainer of Floyd Jr. was on hand and indicated,
Floyd is not here because he doesn’t have to be here. He is upset with the
media and not happy with past coverage.
Now on the other hand, should Castillo find a way to convincingly defeat Mayweather, knowing that Floyd will be bringing his A game to the ring this time, he will be worthy of many praises and will be identified as a bona fide Superstar himself. Whereas if he comes up short, while remaining somewhat competitive, he will have nothing to be ashamed of and will still be revered as a tough opponent. After all, no other Lightweight has ever been able to mitigate the abundance of skill sets present in “Pretty Boy” Floyd either.
This is what makes boxing exciting! I predict that this fight will be a repeat victory for Mayweather, only less competitive this time around.
You have just gone InsideBoxing.com