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Jose Louis Castillo Boxing Autograph
A great 8x10 Action Photograph that has been signed by Jose
Louis Castillo. Guaranteed Authentic and will make a superb
addition to any boxing memorabilia collection.
Jose L Castillo
£25.00
At the age of 32, Jose has been fighting as
a pro for over 16 1/2 years. A former two-time WBC lightweight
world champion, he has been fighting at the top levels of
competition at 135 pounds for six years.
Jose won the WBC world title in June, 2000,
and made three successful defenses before losing the title
to Floyd Mayweather in April, 2002. He regained the title
in June, 2004, and made two successful defenses before losing
the title to Diego Corrales in May, 2005.
He had a sensational two-fight series with
Diego Corrales last year. Both fights were tremendous battles,
with each fighter winning one by knockout.
Both fights also involved controversies, with
each fighter at the center of one. In the rematch on October
8, Jose scored a spectacular one-punch knockout win, but
did not make the 135-pound weight limit.
In their first fight on May 7, Corrales scored
a tenth-round TKO win in a WBO-WBC title unification bout.
Many veteran observers rank it as one of the top-ten greatest
fights of all time. The controversy involved Corrales -
knocked down two times in the tenth round, he gained extra
time to recover after each knockdown by dropping his mouthpiece.
A third fight was scheduled against Corrales
two times. The first was scheduled for February 4, 2006,
but Corrales was injured in training, and Roland Reyes filled
in. The second was scheduled for June 3, but Jose could
not make the 135 pound limit and the fight was cancelled.
Regarding the first Corrales fight, Jose said
through an interpreter, "The fight plan since day one
is go in there and knock him out. The fact that I only trained
for 21 days for the fight should tell people something,
after what I did to him. Maybe without [referee] Tony Weeks'
help, I could have won that fight even with the little training
that I did.
"I had just fought in March and there
wasn't that much time to train anyway. But I was so confident
that I could knock him out with one punch, I had seen his
fights, that I thought I would be ready to go. I was so
confident because everyone kept telling me, 'If you hit
him real good, he's going down.' So my confidence was sky
high that I wouldn't have to work that hard in that fight.
I haven't really said that to people too much. A lot of
people on my team knew, and a lot of people near me knew
what I went through in those 21 days. Now I'm able to tell
people so they know what I had to overcome in the first
fight. I was out of gas after the fifth round. From the
fifth to the tenth round, I was fighting only on heart."
Regarding the rematch, Jose said, "I
got hurt about 12 days before the fight. It was during sparring,
it was towards the end of the round. When they yelled, '10
seconds,' I kind of relaxed a little bit, but the kid I
was sparring with didn't. He threw a great shot right at
my rib.
"They even did an x-ray on me and it
showed that there was some ligament damage. All I could
do for the last 12 days was shadowbox, basically. I know
it was a disadvantage for me, because I wasn't prepared
as well as I could have been. "They talk about the
weight, but the day that I had to do the re-weigh, the day
of the fight, I was at 146 and he was at 149. The day of
the fight, he was bigger than I was. I think I would have
come in at 146 even if I had made 135 the day before.
"The only time I didn't make a championship
weight for a title fight before was when I fought Cesar
Bazan. I was a pound and a half over. It was difficult,
but I was able to take it off and fight for the title. That's
the only other time it happened."
Before Jose's first fight against Corrales,
he had won two fights in a row against former world champions
Julio Diaz and Joel Casamayor, and before that had beaten
WBC No. 1 ranked contender Juan Lazcano. Jose's previous
two losses were in 2002, both by 12-round decision against
Floyd Mayweather, but most observers thought Jose deserved
to win their first fight.
Jose won the WBC lightweight world title for
the second time in June, 2004, and made two successful title
defenses. He previously held the title from June, 2000,
until April, 2002, and made three successful title defenses.
Jose turned pro at 16 and went 24-3 over his
first six years as a pro, with all three losses coming by
TKO in challenges for the Mexican national featherweight
title. Two of the losses were against Javier Jauregui, who
went on to win the IBF lightweight world title in 2003.
The other was against Cesar Soto, who went on to win the
WBC featherweight world title in 1999.
He worked from 1996 to 2000 as one of the
main sparring partners for legendary former three-time world
champion Julio Cesar Chavez.
Jose is trained by Tiburcio Garcia, who was
the chief assistant to Nacho Beristain in Mexico City for
several years. [note: Beristain's first world champions
were Daniel Zaragoza, who won the WBC bantamweight world
in 1985, and Gilberto Roman, who won the WBC super flyweight
world title in 1986; Beristain currently trains former IBF-WBA
featherweight world champion Juan Manuel Marquez and his
brother, IBF bantamweight world champion Rafael Marquez]
Jose is experienced against top opposition
and has several impressive wins to his credit. He has fought
current or former world champions Diego Corrales twice (KO4,
TKOby10), Julio Diaz (TKO10), Joel Casamayor (W12), Floyd
Mayweather twice (L12, L12), Cesar Bazan (TKO6), Stevie
Johnston twice (W12, D12), Jorge Paez (TKO5), Javier Jauregui
twice (TKOby10, TKOby10), and Cesar Soto (TKOby2). He has
fought a number of contenders, as well.
Jose was born in Empalme, Mexico, and grew
up in a family with four brothers and four sisters...he
said, "My father used to be a professional fighter,
but he worked a lot of years on the railroad. He never gave
up his job at the railroad. He used to take us to all the
boxing, whether he fought or not, and I really enjoyed the
sport. I thought it was fun. There was always boxing gloves
around the house, so it was just natural for me to step
into it.
"I used to go to my dad's fights when
I was about seven or eight years old. I used to get up in
ring between fights and do my workout right there, my shadowboxing,
and people would throw money at me. I liked that part. I
was 12 years old when I started fighting as an amateur,
and I had 33 amateur fights. I was 30-3. I was 25-0 before
somebody beat me.
"They were looking for me to go up and
join the national team in Mexico City. I was there for 15
days, and I didn't like the way they trained people, the
way they were doing things. I just left and turned pro.
I have no regrets whatsoever about turning pro at 16."...
Jose is a regular at the Mexicali Eagles'
games in the Mexican winter baseball league; he takes batting
practice with the team and sits on their bench in full uniform,
with his name stitched on the back...
Jose said, "I don't think I've changed
much as a boxer over the years, I think everything's the
same. Now that I've fought some of the best fighters in
the world, that experience itself has helped me a lot. I
think I was ready for those challenges in 1996 and '97,
but I never got the opportunity to fight the best fighters
in the world. And it's not only a question of getting the
opportunites, but doing something with them, and I think
I have done that.
