REFEREE TONY WEEKS AND TRAINER JOE GOOSSEN JOIN MORNING KOMBAT’S BRIAN CAMPBELL AHEAD OF SHOWTIME BOXING CLASSIC REPLAY OF CORRALES vs. CASTILLO
Ahead of Friday night’s SHOWTIME BOXING CLASSICS (10 p.m. ET/PT on SHOWTIME®), which will feature the unforgettable two-fight series between Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo, MORNING KOMBAT’s Brian Campbell speaks with two men who played prominent roles in the first matchup that was later named Fight of the Decade.
Taking place fifteen years ago this May 7, nobody had a closer view of the non-stop action than referee Tony Weeks, who tells Campbell, “Never did I dream the fight would elevate to the level that it did.” The veteran combat sports analyst and one half of SHOWTIME Sports’ digital talk show MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL asks about Weeks’ role in 2005’s consensus Fight of the Year, docking Corrales a point for spitting his mouthpiece, and his split-second decision to step in and stop the fight in the 10th round.
Goossen, the former trainer of the late Corrales, who tragically passed away two years to the day after his epic first fight with Castillo, shares their strategy going into the matchup, his perspective from the corner and how his fighter was able to miraculously overcome two knockdowns to stop Castillo in the legendary final round.
Following are excerpts from the interviews:
On Corrales vs. Castillo I…
Weeks – “Fifteen years later, I still think about this fight every day. What an honor to be a part of history. The two fighters put in all the work, and I just did what I was trained to do.”
Weeks – “It really hit me when I went home and I’m getting all these phone calls for interviews, or people congratulating me on a great job. It was like, ‘What happened?’ When I had the chance to really sit down and look at it and see it, it was like, ‘Wow! What a fight.’”
Goossen – “When [Corrales] got the point taken away from him on the second knockdown, he was arguing with Tony Weeks. In my mind, that was a good thing because that showed presence of mind that he didn’t like the fact that he was getting a point taken away from him…Now, I will tell you there were some people very close to Diego that were sitting a couple feet from me that were yelling at me to stop the fight. That I heard. And I responded with a quick ‘no’ because they deserved my response…I knew what I was looking at. They may have thought differently. From their viewpoint, it may have looked a lot worse than I thought it looked.”
During Friday’s SHOWTIME BOXING CLASSICS telecast, Thomas and Campbell will host a live companion episode of MORNING KOMBAT on the Morning Kombat YouTube Channel. The versatile combat sports analysts will watch the SHOWTIME replay and react to the fights in real time and take questions from fans while the bouts replay on the network.