Pain

A few months later, as he faced a lineup of four sparring partners in preparation for the rematch, Diego Corrales would evoke the pain he incurred on that immortal night last May when he first fought Jose Luis Castillo:

"It was the kind that no human should ever have to go through."

During that unforgettable bout Diego traversed hell, just as he had predicted he would to the boxing media three days earlier, and by the end of the night he sat exalted on the shoulders of his ageless trainer, Joe Goossen, levitating in the joy of victory but looking as if he had just risen from the grave.

It was a brutal fight.

For 10 exhaustive rounds Diego clashed with an opponent who possessed the same relentless will to win; he had just suffered a little more than 29 minutes of incessant blows that were so vicious, so resonant, that even spectators 3,000 miles away, watching on television, cringed with empathetic pain; and he had been floored two times in the 10th round, only to, through sheer resilience and determination, rise from the canvas, evade Jose Luis Castillo, then knock out the great Mexican champion.

It was a sensational fight.

Some deemed it the year's best; others called it the fight of the young century; just about all said it was one of the best boxing matches, if not the best boxing match, that they had ever witnessed.

Analysts claimed that it encapsulated all the ingredients of a delectable fight: exhilaration, ebb and flow, technical excellence. Fans enjoyed the sustained action, the ancient Roman brutality, the graciousness of both fighters; many hadn't seen anything like it since the nostalgic days of Thomas Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard and Julio Cesar Chavez. Sportswriters praised the fight for embodying those old universal virtues, present only when man is in conflict, which were given flesh and blood for all to see at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on May 7: sacrifice and honor and courage and class and endurance and, above all, the infinite strength of the human spirit.

Yet, for 28-year-old Diego—a born competitor who learned his vocation as a kid in Sacramento, California, where he was baptized with the nickname "Chico" on account of his slender frame and persisting boyish traits—it was just another day at the job.

As ever, he had trained hard for the fight. He had known that it would be grueling, and had even told the world that he would cross hell or high water to prevail.

What he had not foreseen—because it was unforeseeable—was the degree of pain he was to encounter.

Far too much pain for a boxer to endure more than once, Joe Goossen said when pressed about a rematch less than 30 minutes after the final punch.

"I say there is no way one man should have to fight two fights in a career like that," he stated. "You'd have to be a sadist if you wanted to see them [fight each other] again."

But the point Joe was trying to express was already common knowledge: Everyone who saw the first fight knew that a rematch would be full of tension, brutality and, as Diego later described, inhuman pain. That is, it would be a continuation of the first fight.

"We are just alike," Diego would say, four short months removed from that night in May and 280 miles from his wife and kids in Las Vegas. "We're both hunters, we're both big punchers and neither one of us will step backwards."

At that time he was in the strong stage of his training camp in Van Nuys, California, which included, among many other arduous duties, sparring sessions with four consecutive partners whose fortune and misfortune it was to be in the same ring as the lightweight champion of the world as he prepared to once again fight Jose Luis Castillo.

For, sure enough, before Diego even had a chance to catch his breath from the whirlwind of fame that escorted him around the nation following his victory, a rematch had been set for October 8 at the Thomas & Mack Arena.

Jose Luis Castillo had wanted the rematch right away. A 31-year-old man with the strong, durable body of a track-layer, a solid jaw and a spirit tested time and time again during his 15 years as a professional in the rigorous sport, Jose Luis wanted revenge even before the blood on his face had dried.

In his natural tongue—a rapid and articulate Spanish—Jose Luis said during the post-fight press conference that, yes, the fight had been taxing, and that, true, he had been hurt, but that he was very eager for a rematch. And then he nailed home his fervency:

"Mañana."

Jose Luis' impatience stemmed from an obvious root: that pure competitive pride which rejects defeat and which will push whoever lives by it beyond fathomable limits.

Plus, he, like everyone who saw the fight, could not believe what had just happened.

The match itself started when ring announcer Jim Lennon Jr. gave the opening introductions, but for Jose Luis the fight had been brewing since he was a toddler in Empalme, Mexico, the photogenic coastal city where he began fiddling around with his papa's boxing gloves.

As soon as puberty sent a surge of testosterone through his 12-year-old body, Jose Luis began to box in amateur fights, winning his first 25 bouts and showing signs of the aggressive and inexorable style that would later lead him on a crash course with Diego Corrales.

On May 4, 1990—exactly 15 years before he made a bold prophesy in front of media members that he would not only knock down Diego Corrales, but that Diego Corrales would, for the first time in his career, stay down—Jose Luis took all of his 16 years into a ring in Mexicali, Mexico, for his first professional fight. He won by knockout.

Over the next decade he learned the paramount value of preparation, training harder and harder for his fights, which, as he improved, became tougher and tougher. Out of nothing but raw sweat and anguish he created a body capable of endurance. He earned a reputation for his cyclonic strength, his virulent body shots and the relentless pressure he applied to every one of his foes.

By May of 2005 he had won 52 fights, 46 by knockout; he had won the World Boxing Council (WBC) lightweight championship belt two times; and he had won not only the adoration of the Mexican people for being a lighthearted and classy champion, but also the respect of fans, critics and other boxers, including Diego Corrales, for being a tough and tenacious champion. And though he had lost six times—three times in the 10th round, on account of excessive bleeding—Jose Luis had never been knocked out.

When matchmakers paired him with the World Boxing Organization (WBO) lightweight champion Diego Corrales for a unification bout after some seven months of delay, fans began to salivate, as it was well known that Jose Luis and Diego were the best lightweights in the world, and two of the most exciting boxers regardless of weight class. Jose Luis was just as thrilled, for he wanted to display under the Las Vegas lights—boxing's grand stage—the sum total of all his years dedicated to the art of boxing.

He had anticipated an intense fight, and he trained hard—hard enough, he believed, not only to win, but to endure anything it took to wake up on Sunday, May 8, with the only two lightweight belts that mattered hanging in his hotel closet.

And so, after Jimmy Lennon Jr. gave his impeccable introductions, and referee Tony Weeks spelled out his rules for the fighters in the middle of the ring, Jose Luis rocked from side to side in his corner, eager to get it started.

In the fight's first 10 seconds he felt Diego out with a straight left to the body. But then, from there, it was on: jabs and hooks, lefts and rights, a ruthless body shot, an unobstructed uppercut to the chin—Jose Luis and his nemesis traded punches for three minutes, establishing a firm and inclement tone, and never once deviating more than a few feet from one another. It was as if a bungee cord—short and invisible—bound the two men together, and the tension it created trapped everyone who watched.

Diego Corrales came out of his corner for the second round with the insistent and oppressive style he's used since he was 10 years old. Back then, in Oak Park, a tough Sacramento neighborhood full of tough kids who abided by a tough code, Diego came to realize his superior strength, and, to the misfortune of many peers, his knockout power. His stepfather, Ray Woods, a man with no capacity for losing or quitting, also noticed Diego's abnormal strength of body; and because Ray was married to Diego's mother and thus quite acquainted with her inflexible sense of resolve, he knew that Diego had inherited a mind just as strong as his fists. Ray saw the raw materials of a champion in his boy. So he kept Diego in the gym.

Which was not always easy, because Diego often looked to the wrong places to exercise his restlessness, such as other people's cars. His other great vice—women—would sometimes derail his boxing career, such as the time he bypassed a chance to take his predatory style to the 1996 Olympic Games in Georgia, because, "Well," as he says, "a woman is man's kryptonite, and mine at that time didn't want me to box."

Nevertheless, by the time he came under Joe Goossen's coaching in 2003, Diego had won 37 of his 39 professional fights, 31 of them by knockout, and had solved many of his youthful problems. Along the way he had accumulated and refined his boxing skills, which meant that Joe—a perfect Southern Californian with his sleeveless shirts, indelible tan and beach-blond hair, who in the '60s and '70s had grown up in the Olympic Auditorium watching the great Mexican fighters define the term machismo—needed only to help Diego do the most natural thing: coordinate his weaponry with his huntsman's mentality. Together they made Diego's style more dangerous.

By the second round Diego and Jose Luis had both done away with any hesitations. As they clashed in the middle of the ring during the next four rounds, the 8 ounces of padding in their gloves did little to muffle the thunderous resonation of Diego's left hooks, or assuage the pang he felt from Jose Luis' one, two, three, four volcanic uppercuts in a row, gnashing Diego's teeth, nearly snapping his head off its hinge. Diego shed first blood, in the third round, from a cut over the right eye; but he nailed his adversary with a sharp right in the fourth, leaving a nasty gash over Jose Luis' left eye.

The damage only got worse. Nobody expected Diego to fight Jose Luis on the inside—for everyone knows that is Castillo's office, where he gets his best work done—but Diego entered it and stayed there, bumping heads with Jose Luis, grinding shoulders, leaning and pushing with all of his 147 pounds that night (one more than his counterpart), trying to gain a millimeter of leverage with every one of his 72 inches (three more than his counterpart), and striving to create just enough room to let off that one concussive punch that would end it all. Critics said infighting was a nightmarish strategy on Diego's part, and by the marks starting to appear on his face, it looked as if they were right. But had his reasons: He knew that the indefatigable Mexican had a reputation for steamrolling in the later rounds, and so he wanted to impede on Jose Luis early, creating a vigorous pace from the start and debilitating him with several body shots. But, above all, Diego wanted to prove to everybody that he could beat the man at his own game, that he, too, was tough and pissy and mean enough to win on the inside, and that he could, at any rate, do whatever his critics say he can't.

After momentum had been vacillating between the two men all fight, keeping the crowd erect and in a state of frenzy, Jose Luis jarred Diego with an uppercut in the sixth round. From the angle shown on television, it looked as if he had lifted Diego an inch off the ground. Hundreds of Mexicans who had come to Las Vegas with hopes of celebrating Cinco de Mayo on Thursday, and in their weekend-long convalescence the victory of Jose Luis, cheered and chanted Castillo's name with a deafening solidarity. But Diego was saved by the bell.

Corrales went back to his corner, where Joe, who says that in nearly four decades of training fighters he has never seen a guy with more balls than Diego, told him, "You gotta suck it up right here: This is what's gonna separate [you] two." Diego also received instruction to start creating distance between him and Jose Luis, using his jab, his speed, his agility (in other words, to brawl less and box more). But Diego—whose stubbornness, according to him and his team, has proved to be both a virtue and a vice—went back to the inside.

Jose Luis Castillo continued to rip Diego's body with hooks in the seventh round, and the shots he landed on Diego's face had a repulsive effect: red welts formed around Diego's eyes, and in quick time they swelled purple and shiny.

At this point Diego Corrales had begun to acquiesce to his opponent's invincible chin, and nearly surrendered hope of knocking him out.

"He was unreal," Diego would say after the fight. "You could have hit that guy with a sledgehammer and he wasn't going anywhere. I said to myself then, 'This is going to be a 12-round fight.'"

But then Diego came two seconds away from accomplishing the inconceivable when he hit Jose Luis with a strong left hook that buckled the Mexican's knees. Just as Diego went in to finish the job, the bell rang.

While Jose Luis Castillo sat on his stool, allowing his cut man, Miguel Diaz, to halt the blood streaming from over his left eye, his trainer, Tiburcio Garcia, shouted to him: "He's dead, he's dead." But the truth was, Jose Luis' opponent was sitting on a stool on the opposite end of the ring, as alive as ever. So too was the crowd. They sensed a knockout coming, and in the eighth and ninth rounds, when Jose Luis and Diego fought with an 11th-hour urgency, the timid viewers tensed and the bloodthirsty ones cheered with every punch, anticipating it to be the conclusive one. The blows were that hard. "And trust me," Diego would confess months later, "they felt as bad as they looked." The action did not stop for a moment, with Diego executing atomic and methodical strikes, and Jose Luis enduring them and without pause throwing hard hooks right back, and if the crowd's madness ever abated during those two rounds, it was only so they could blink or catch their breath. There were concise punches and not-so-stealthy low blows; twisting heads and taciturn fury; pints of sweat dripping off of the two men; one was staggered, the other's mouthpiece went flying and they both looked like hell. Then the bell sounded and Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo returned to their corners.

For Diego Corrales, it seemed like the 10th round had just started when he went down the first time.

He had crossed himself coming out of his corner, as he always does, and proceeded to put pressure on Jose Luis, looking for an opening. Then he ducked low because he thought Jose Luis was going to throw high. It was a painful error: He got stuck with an awesome left hook. The crowd hushed. Then Diego toppled, hit the canvas and lost his mouthpiece. The crowd exploded. Referee Tony Weeks, in this his 23rd title bout, sent Jose Luis to a neutral corner and then picked up the count:

2 ... 3 ...

Diego rose to a knee.

4 ... 5 ... 6 ...

Diego stared at the ref with lucid eyes.

7 ... 8 ...

Diego rose to his feet.

Tony Weeks called time-out to bring Diego back to his corner, where Joe Goossen inserted his mouthpiece along with some critical advice: "Get inside on him!" For Jose Luis, who was still in his neutral corner, the ref couldn't call time-in soon enough—every moment following a knockdown is crucial.

When the fight did resume, Jose Luis went right back to work, landing an accumulation of hooks that sent Diego down to the canvas again. Weeks began his count:

2 ... 3 ...

He had been down before; not just in this fight, a few seconds ago, but in three other fights, including the only two defeats on his professional record. He had been down eight times in his career before this. Five times in one fight, against Floyd Mayweather Jr.—a fight more than four years earlier in which his stepfather and trainer at that time, Ray Woods, the man who taught him to never quit, threw in the white towel after that fifth knockdown, because no father wants to see his boy get hurt. But Diego had gotten up all five times, had pleaded with his father to let him continue, for he knew he had it in him—that resilience and resolve—to not just survive the fight but perhaps even win it. But he wasn't given the chance.

4 ... 5 ...

And then twice in the first Casamayor fight. It was October 2003. He was knocked down in the third round by the swift Cuban Joel Casamayor, and then again in the next round. But he got up both times; and when he rose from the second fall, he still had it in him—that resilience and resolve—to floor Casamayor 30 seconds later. Joe Goossen was at that fight, in the opposite corner, Casamayor's, and so he saw that Diego had it in him. And he also saw that Diego still wanted to fight when Dr. Margaret Goodman, ringside physician, told the referee to stop the bout on account of formidable wounds in Diego's mouth.

6 ... 7 ...

Yes, he had been down before; and not just in boxing. He had been knocked down by life, which in many ways isn't much different than fighting Jose Luis Castillo. For instance, in 2001, after he lost to Mayweather, his life hit the canvas on the day he was sent to Tracy, California, to serve 14 months in prison. He had signed a plea bargain in which he admitted to his involvement in a violent incident that occurred between him and his second ex-wife—who was pregnant. He knew that he was not irreproachable, which the facts of the case would confirm, but also that he was neither the instigator nor the most dangerous person in the altercation, which the facts of the case would also confirm. It was a matter of him having put himself in a volatile situation, like infighting with Jose Luis, the day he entered that doomed marriage: the repercussions were inevitable. But he endured prison without excuses or complaints, and then walked out of its iron gates and into the arms of his wife today, Michelle, with whom he shares a house in Las Vegas, sweet with the smell of home-cooked family life.

8 ...9 ...

Just as he had gotten up against Mayweather and Casamayor, just as he had gotten up from the devastation of 2001, Diego got up off the canvas again.

He had lost his mouthpiece; the referee docked him one point, as the rules dictate, and then took him to his corner to reinsert the lubricous item. The crowd booed. Jose Luis, confident that the fight was one punch from being over, started rocking in his neutral corner.

But Diego came out with something to prove.

"Nobody should ever count me out as long as I have breath in my body," he would later say. "My spirit was still in it. I knew I could still win the fight."

Jose Luis pressured him backward, against the ropes, trying to land the final punch that would keep Diego down, just as Jose Luis had predicted. But in an instantaneous and eternal moment, Diego stung him with a sharp right. It was the definitive turn. Diego then started to pursue Jose Luis, and in an exchange of punches, he hurt him again with a left hook. The crowd went crazy. And then, before anyone could process the change of fortune that had been unfolding, Diego pinned Jose Luis against the ropes, letting his hands fly.

"My thing was to never ease up," Diego would say after the fight. "I was not going to let this guy off the hook after what we just went through."

Right as Jose Luis went limp and defenseless, with his arms to his sides and his eyes rolling to the back of his head, referee Tony Weeks waved the fight over: Diego Corrales had won by technical knockout.

At the post-fight press conference, Diego said: "I went through hell and I survived!" Those around him needed only to look at his mauled face to know he wasn't exaggerating.

Jose Luis Castillo looked awful at the post-fight press conference, too. His face was red and tender, and the laceration over his left eye was grotesque.

He and Diego received medical attention without delay, and by the end of the following week each fighter had stated that he had received a clean bill of health and satisfied the medical requirements set forth by the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC). Besides being sore, they said, they were fine.

According to Marc Ratner, executive director of the NSAC, both fighters were suspended from fighting for 90 days, and from training with contact for 60 days. Their suspensions, determined by the ringside physicians, exceeded the norm on account of the number of rounds they fought, the sheer punishment each man endured and the cuts and bruises quite obvious on their bodies.

"Everyone was astounded at the bravery, the courage, the strength, the skill and the ability of both fighters," says chairwoman of the NSAC Medical Advisory Board, Dr. Margaret Goodman, whose lambent red hair has been seen ringside at more than 450 professional fights in Las Vegas. "Yet, with those credentials come risks—even the ultimate risk."

In a sport whose chief objective is to score a knockout, concussions are a prevalent reality. They occur in the brain at a cellular level, as a sort of short-circuiting when a person's head is hit hard enough, and they are often a precursor to serious brain injuries.

"And it's perfectly normal to suffer a concussion without showing post-concussive signs," says Goodman, a practicing neurologist since 1988.

According to her, both Jose Luis and Diego, though asymptomatic after the fight, had to have suffered concussions in the driest definition of the term, for not only had both taken hundreds of hard blows to the head, but Jose had been knocked out and Diego knocked down twice.

Then there is the risk of brain injuries. Four boxers this year alone have suffered a hematoma while fighting in Nevada, according to a report by the Los Angeles Times. Moreover, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons has estimated that 15 to 40 percent of ex-boxers experience chronic brain injury, and that nearly all professional fighters incur some degree of brain damage.

The world has seen the irreversible harm boxing has done to the great Muhammad Ali, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, a brain disorder that impairs coordination and motor skills. Scores of former boxers have had their dreams of a paradisiacal retirement from the ring spoiled by dementia pugilistica—punch-drunk syndrome.

But above all, there is the very real risk of death. On September 17, Leavander Johnson, a veteran boxer and a father of four, took a grave beating for 10 rounds in his lightweight IBF title fight at the MGM Grand. In the 11th round, referee Weeks stopped the fight when he saw Johnson against the ropes, helpless. Johnson walked out of the ring by his own power, but then collapsed as he entered his locker room. At University Medical Center, doctors diagnosed him with severe brain swelling, and so they medically induced a coma to abate the pressure. He died on the 23rd. His death was the sixth boxing fatality in Las Vegas since 1994, but the second this year: Martin Sanchez, an amiable super-lightweight from Mexico City, had died after his fight at the Orleans Arena on July 2.

Therefore, Dr. Goodman says, "It is important for everyone—the boxers, the trainers, the promoters, the referees, the athletic commission: everyone—to get involved and ensure that they do everything possible to prevent tragedies, because it is not fair, and it is not acceptable to say it's all just a part of boxing. I don't believe that."

Furthermore, Dr. Goodman says, the best remedy for a fight, especially the brutal kind, is rest; and the best preventive measure against the sport's inherent dangers is also rest.

Ratner says that the only concern at the end of the first match was time, and now that sufficient time has elapsed, there is nothing to hold back the October 8 rematch.

"I could've used some extra time [off]," says Diego. "I would've liked to had more time to spend at home with my family."

Yet, he is also quick to approve the hasty date. "One thing about time is, you gotta get it while you're hot."

For Jose Luis, time to rest would be providential. He has had an exhausting year. Two months before his fight with Diego he had fought a 10-round match against former champion Julio Diaz; three months before that he had fought the difficult Joel Casamayor for 12 rounds; and six months before that he had won his WBC lightweight championship belt when he went the distance with Juan Lazcano.

But Jose Luis says he has recuperated in full and will be in even better condition for the rematch.

Dr. Goodman remains cautious.

"It's valuable to know that [Jose Luis and Diego] possess the capacity to withstand that kind of fight," Goodman says. "But that doesn't mean anyone should let their guard down—we all must be cognizant of that."

A rematch was inevitable. Everyone—the fans, the promoters, even the fighters themselves—wanted to see Jose Luis and Diego go at it again.

"The rematch is one of the few fights the public has demanded," says Kevin Iole, Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing columnist. "It was one of the great fights of all time, and everyone realized it was good for boxing."

For many, the May 7 fight was like a breath of fresh air in a sport that has, in the public's eye, been submerged in a mire of alphabetical mayhem, labyrinthine politics and rapacious promoters.

"I think people appreciate that we're two positive guys, doing the ugly job—and making it look good," Diego says.

Moreover, the fight caught the attention of the mainstream public, according to Castillo's promoter, Bob Arum of Top Rank Inc.

"The buzz has been so great," says Arum, a patriarch of boxing who had promoted Diego before he went to jail. "Everywhere I've traveled, people who are not necessarily boxing fans were talking about it."

For the promoters, there is much to gain in a rematch. The first fight attracted a modest crowd of 5,168 boxing enthusiasts; the rematch is projected to sell out the 17,500 available seats at the Thomas & Mack, according to Top Rank officials. The first fight was televised on basic Showtime; the rematch will be telecast on Showtime Pay-Per-View, for a price of $49.95.

Although Showtime does not offer projections, several sources predict Corrales-Castillo II (which has been given the shibboleth "One More Time") will attract north of 450,000 buys. That number, according to Showtime executive Jay Larkin, would make it a great success in the current pay-per-view climate.

Plus, it would mean an even bigger payday for Diego and Jose Luis. Diego is guaranteed to make $2 million, while Jose Luis can walk out with his own $2 million, and whatever success the fight has with pay-per-view will be icing on the cake.

Both fighters understand the rematch is a precious opportunity for one of them to rise near the top of the sport.

"If Diego wins this second fight with Castillo," says Ed Jackson, a cool and sturdy influence in Diego's corner, and a man with an astute mind for business affairs, "he'll be in that upper echelon, where guys make three to four million a fight. ... He won't have to worry about looking for fights. Guys will be fighting to get to him, because he'll be where the money's at."

Nonetheless, Diego says, sucking in a big breath: "You can't put no price tag on the kind of pain that comes with fighting Castillo. No way."

And then, exhaling:

"You have to be fighting for something else."

And that, according to Diego, is pride—and fans—and family—and the love of the sport—and—and—and history—and because you feel driven to the ring, not for glory and least of all for profit, but because you want to do your best, and be the best; that is, you want to be a champion.

Joe Goossen, who expressed adamant reservations about a rematch after the first fight, says that his comments then were an expression of his surging emotions, and that he is absolutely positive Diego is ready to fight Castillo again.

Jose Luis, a firm patriot of Mexico with aspirations to be mayor of his birthplace, Empalme, a railroad town built by foreigners a hundred years ago, said:

"I just go do my job. I do not think about anything else. I go in there and do my best to give the people the best fight I can. ... If you give me more opponents like [Diego], I will give you that kind of fight every single night out."

For his family and friends who fear exactly that kind of fight—for Jose Luis' sake—he says that security, and his own tranquility, lie in preparation.

"If you are in top condition, you can take 12 rounds like [the first fight]," he has said. "If we prepare ourselves again, we should be ready to go another 12 rounds like that."

It's now Wednesday, September 14, three and a half weeks until he is to enter hell again, and Diego Corrales is facing a lineup of four tough sparring partners: a top lightweight contender with infinite potential, a big bruiser, a youngster still learning the science of the sport and a burly fighter prepping for his own upcoming bout—each of whom will have their two, three, four, or five rounds with the champ.

As usual, Diego is in an old blue T-shirt, nameless sweats and his trusty Adidas boxing shoes; and through his headgear his opponents can make out only a pair of soft lips and unblinking eyes.

He spars 14 rounds in all, and in each of them Diego stalks his opponent, remains cool and in control, and heeds the ringside instruction of Joe Goossen, who even more than a trainer is his friend, and whose eyes are also unblinking, focused on every angle with the acuity of an art critic. Joe, his lips parted, lets out a loud "UH-HUH" every time Diego does something in the ring he likes—which, these days, is often.

"He's sharper, and even stronger, than he was for the first fight," says Elan Haim, a cornerman on Diego's team.

At the end of the session, Diego tells his team that he could have gone at least two more rounds.

But sparring is just part of the preparation. For the past 44 days he has been in Van Nuys, giving his fidelity to an arduous training regimen that includes not just roadwork in the morning, sparring or floorwork in the afternoon, and strength and conditioning in the evening, six days a week, but also the strenuous task of absolute celibacy, all day every day, until October 9.

Adequate preparation is the key, says Joe, a man well read in the sciences and well-versed in just about every topic under the sun. Because a fighter who has put the honest work into the gym, Joe says, is the fighter who can be strong and technically sound for the entire fight. He is the fighter who is trained to get up from knockdowns with composure. But even before the fight, he is the one who can walk into the ring with imperturbable confidence, which is crucial, for unlike other sports, a moment of diffidence in the ring can result in a sudden loss of your consciousness, your belt, your life.

"Look, you can never completely eliminate the fear," Joe says. "We reduce it as much as possible by covering our bases in the gym."

On Thursday, as soon as he wakes, Diego goes running in the cool, seven o'clock air of Southern California. Diego runs through a hilly park, conquering three miles in 20 minutes, but says that on certain days, when he's feeling fresh, he'll blow through a 5-minute mile. He often thinks of Jose Luis Castillo, if not to remind himself why he's up so early in the morning, then to help pass the time until he returns to his apartment, where he'll eat and sleep until it is time to meet Joe at the trainer's gym for a solid three hours of floorwork.

Diego arrives at Joe's gym at about one o'clock. It is an intimate and unpretentious hole in the wall, tucked away from the congestion of Van Nuys Boulevard, with white brick walls, white ceilings and white beams overhead, from which hang bags of all sorts: speed, heavy, double-end, traditional and even a weave. There is, of course, a standard boxing ring, stained with shoe skids and countless rounds of wear and tear, and it is cupped in by two walls of mirrors that haven't told a single lie in the 16 years Joe has used that facility to train champion boxers. The gym is humid, the smell of hard work hovers. Joe is already there, sitting among a small group of friends, fighters and old-timers. They trade memories of good and bad fights and the immortal boxers who made them. All of which can be seen, smelled and heard by straggling pedestrians, for the facade of the gym is a glass wall and the front door is often open to let in air.

When Diego enters, not much changes in the atmosphere. He merely wiggles into the existing conversation.

Diego and his team talk a lot. They talk like grandfathers about philosophical and current news issues, and they joke like teenagers about every conceivable topic on this side of heaven. It makes for a light and familial ambiance as Diego suits up.

Then it's time to get to work. While 50 Cent provides the soundtrack, Diego pushes through exercises with no distractions. They train in rounds: three minutes of jumping rope or working the bag or shadowboxing at a time, each followed by a minute of rest, and each with the precise and calculated aim of improving a skill that can be transferred to the ring.

"We do the standard stuff—the fundamentals," says Joe, who coaches Diego through every round from a distance no farther than five feet. "But it's the way we do it that makes all the difference."

Joe has the heater on, so it's warm in the gym, very warm, but Diego keeps on grinding. Joe watches Diego with his square chin titled side to side, and Diego looks to him constantly. Diego completes 32 rounds, which he calls "grueling," then takes off his shirt and throws it over the top rope. It leaks like a broken faucet.

"We try to simulate the conditions of a fight in training," says Joe. "During fights, you're pushed to the limit, so that's what we prepare for."

Shirtless, Diego takes a seat on the decline bench, and, with Elan feeding him a medicine ball, he works his abs. Joe observes Diego's body—sleek and kinetic; not bulky nor imposing, nor a spectacle like that of, say, Evander Holyfield, but durable—then comments that it looks like their training is right on track.

After having returned to his apartment to eat and sleep again, and to call his wife, Diego meets with Tony Brady, an expert strength and conditioning coach, for his third workout of the day. They start at about nine o'clock, to acclimate Diego's body to pushing itself at the hour of a main event.

Tony takes Diego through an innovative program that utilizes weight training for a variety of goals: to bring Diego's physique into proportion, using exercises that emphasize lagging muscle groups; to strengthen Diego's core, with plenty of abdominal and lower-back work; and to heighten his conditioning with various full-body movements, high-intensity supersets and all-out efforts to do just a little more.

"Diego has to be the best," says Brady, a 25-year-old certified therapist. "He will not be shown up. It's a beautiful thing."

Afterward, Diego heads home, lets the soporific shows on television at 2 a.m. put him to sleep, and then wakes up on Friday morning to do it all over again.

"I feel ready to go right now," says Diego. "The last weeks of camp are really tough, but I know they'll just give me more confidence going in."

Fifteen hundred miles away, Jose Luis Castillo doesn't want to be bothered.

He is training in the cold altitude of Temoaya, a mountainous region in Central Mexico where the indigenous Otomi men toil under a monotonous rain all day and the women hand-tie mats that are known all over the world for their millimetric perfection. Jose Luis has been conditioning himself in those mountains—2,700 meters above sea level—for the past three weeks, and he has kept the doors shut tight on his camp the whole time.

Because he cannot afford distractions right now, he would say two weeks later, on the one day he opened his camp doors to the Mexican media. There is just too much at stake.

He is driven by revenge. With his sole, tyrannical focus on Diego Corrales—the man who took his belt, which would've been the same as taking his leg—he is sparring three boxers whose talents and attributes combined make one Diego Corrales: former champion Cesar Bazan, who is strong and ambidextrous like Diego; Martin Ramirez, a fighter with the same tall, sleek stature as Diego; and Julio Cesar "Babe Face" Garcia, a brazen young prodigy who, like Diego, is willing to go toe to toe with Jose Luis on the inside.

The praise of Jose Luis has always been his excellent condition, but he knows that he must work harder and with more undivided attention this time around if he is going to redeem himself. He feels that he has been cheated out of wins in the two biggest fights of his career. In April 2002, he brought his WBC lightweight belt into the ring at the MGM Grand against Floyd Mayweather Jr., the protean and bombastic fighter who had knocked Diego Corrales down five times the year before. Jose Luis out-muscled and outworked the smaller Floyd all night, landing more punches and much harder shots, CompuBox numbers would show. But the judges gave the decision to Floyd, a Las Vegas resident and American Olympic bronze medalist in 1996. Jose Luis was devastated. Three years later, against Diego, he felt he would have won if the referee hadn't allowed Diego, who spit out his mouthpiece after both knockdowns, time to recover by bringing him back to his corner, where Joe Goossen reinserted his mouthpiece with as much delay as possible. Jose Luis, like many others in the sport, believes the referee should have made Diego fight without the mouthpiece, and because he didn't, Diego was given time to recover, a godsend in boxing.

And so now Jose Luis is training harder than ever, running through the mountain air with more resolve than before, because he plans to take the fight out of the judges' hands, or the referee's hands, and place it strictly into his own. And with those hands of his, he has predicted, he will knock Diego out for good by the seventh round in the rematch.

But even more than revenge, and more than vindicating himself, Jose Luis is fighting for his people.

When he had returned to Mexico after the first fight, he felt crappy. He was still a bit sore in the body—but that wasn't the problem. It was in his mind: He felt as if he let down not only himself, but also his people.

Boxing is his heritage. Jose Luis is the son of a man who found the energy and enthusiasm to fight more than 100 matches in those sparse moments he wasn't laboring away on the railroad in Empalme; and he is the brother of a man, Ricardo "Piolo" Castillo, who has compiled a record of 21 wins and two losses and shown many signs of being a great champion. Thus, Jose Luis Castillo knows that he represents his family name every time out.

And Jose Luis is the pupil of the legendary Julio Cesar Chavez—the Michael Jordan of Mexico—to whom Jose Luis credits his success as a boxer and pays homage in all of his fights, wearing his master's unmistakable red headband, tied across his skull like a silk crown, as he makes his long walk to the ring. An icon in his homeland, with 108 career wins and championship belts in three weight classes, Chavez had taken a young Jose Luis under his wing 15 years ago. Chavez was at the May 7 bout, just as he sits ringside at all of Jose Luis' big fights.

Jose Luis comes from a country of indomitable fighters, and millions and millions of fans who adore them. But he, despite his success—having won a lightweight championship two times and trying to become the only Mexican other than Chavez to win it a third time—has yet to capture the hearts of fans in Mexico City, the only place in the vast country where a boxer can be consecrated into the pantheon of legends.

Therefore, he doesn't want any distractions while he trains. There is too much at stake.

The day before the fight, Diego Corrales will have weighed in within the lightweight limit of 135 pounds, for he has been vigilant over his diet and dead serious about his training these past 10 weeks.

On the morning of October 8, he will wake up in his hotel room after a restless sleep, right around seven, and then do nothing more than be himself.

Which means he'll eat, right away. And then he'll go for a stroll with the placid confidence of man who has done everything in his power to prepare for what he calls a mere continuation of his last fight with Jose Luis Castillo—just the 11th round.

Then he'll be back in bed by eight o'clock, and sleep for a good four hours.

He will not be worried about the pain everyone knows he is to encounter, because he has proven to himself that he can endure it; nor will he be worried about the Leavander Johnsons and Martin Sanchezes and the fatal risks inherent in fighting, for he knows he took care of the one thing he can control: his preparation. And he will not be worried about the Muhammad Alis and the potential future ramifications of absorbing so many vicious blows, because Diego believes that he can walk away from the game as soon as he senses the first sign of trouble; because he feels that he does not need boxing, like many of his afflicted predecessors had, but has the capacity and capability—and the college degree—to succeed in any venture he might choose outside of the ring. In truth, the only thing he fears is failure, and so he will look to keep his mind focused only on the task at hand.

When he wakes up from his nap Diego will eat lunch. Then, as before, he will take a stroll. He knows everyone is expecting a lot from this fight—expecting it to perhaps be even better than the first, or at least as good—but he carries no unnecessary burden, because no matter how you slice it, he has a job to do, and it's a hard job regardless of anyone's expectations.

By one o'clock, he will be back in bed.

He will not be worried about hitting the canvas again. For he knows, on account of experience, that he can pick himself up; and when he remembers the first fight with Jose Luis, which he often does, he sees himself getting up, and then getting up again, too damn stubborn to stay down, too damn resilient and resolute to quit. He trusts that he has worked too hard and embodies too much faith and determination to lose; and that's why he believes he is meant to be boxing—to manifest those means of his life on a grand stage, where everyone can see the results. As if it were destiny.

By 3:30 he will be up again. Diego won't waste any time in finding something to eat. Then he will make good on his ritual of watching a comedy before his fights. Joe will come get him from his room by six, and from there they will grab a quick bite to eat.

By seven he will be in his locker room at the Thomas & Mack arena, where the first thing he will do is make a bed. Diego will then kick back and try to relax, joking and joshing with Elan, Ricky, Jack and Joe even more than usual, and taking his time to put on his boxer's wardrobe. He will view the undercard fights on television without really watching them. People—family, friends, associates—will start to populate his locker room, and so too will his wife, who is pregnant with Diego's fifth child. But his other four kids—Natia, 12; Devontay, 11; Joel, 10; Sequoia, 6—will not be there, for Diego knows boxing is a brutal business, and so does not wish for them to see his fights. Then his wife will give him a kiss.

Diego will now buckle down. He will now metamorphose into a savage, the one whose pitiless face and executioner's aura will be seen on television, and he will narrow his focus with such intensity that he becomes impervious to the rest of the world—just like a lunatic. Music deepens his solitude. He'll take his time to stretch, to loosen up, to get ready for another trip through hell. And then, as his hour approaches, he will withdraw from everyone and pray. On his knees Diego will pray to God for protection over not just his head but Jose Luis' too, because if anyone were to ever get hurt beyond repair by his fists—or, Lord forbid, die—he would not have the heart to endure it. He will ask for forgiveness, because he knows he is not a perfect man. He will pray thanks. And he will pray for strength to continue to overcome any obstacle and continue to move forward.

And then his music will come on, and with his retinue behind him he will make the long walk to the ring, where referee Joe Cortez will be waiting alongside the challenger, Jose Luis Castillo.

And then the 11th round will begin.