Boxing Perspective: Joshua Clottey And Diego Corrales – Two Ships Passing In The Night

As Diego Corrales headed into his dressing room Saturday night, the coming out party had just begun for Joshua Clottey. The hand that had agued him in his title bout with Antonio Margarito worked like a charm as he connected with Corrales’ chin with uppercuts, seemingly at will. And what of Corrales’ chin? Watching him reclining on the

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couch with dejected eyes, as medics buzzed around him in his dressing room, wondering if his jaw was broken, wondering if 147 was a mistake, wondering if Clottey was a mistake, and wondering, no doubt, if it’s time to hang up the gloves. Corrales’ chin has answered old questions and brought up a plague of new ones.

Chico’s chin is more sustainable at 147. But now that it’s been possibly broken, is this a new weakness to hinder him in an even heavier and more talented weight class?

Joshua Clottey needed this name. Diego Corrales was the right fighter for him to make the relatively few people who know the name Joshua Clottey remember it. Clottey’s reputation was dangling as precipitously as Corrales’ chin and waiting for the KO punch by losing yet again on a national stage.

But in defeating, in landslide fashion, a warrior in Corrales who falls just shy of future Hall of Fame status in this writer’s estimation, Joshua Clottey registers himself yet again as a threat to the elite.

Diego Corrales, however, may have just registered himself as a gateway fighter if he chooses to fight on. He’ll be a name until he retires, thanks to the wars with Castillo and Casamayor, the beating he gave Freitas and the one he took from Mayweather.

Undeniably, win or lose, Corrales has fought the greats. But with his body being uncooperative in any effort to get down to junior welterweight, and a sound loss to a fighter sitting on the doorstep of the top
ten, what’s left for Diego?

There is reason other than friendship why he shouldn’t fight Mosley. Mosley’s speed and stamina is better than Clottey’s and he’d find his chin all night long.

Paul Williams would punish him with his long arms and better inside game. And Antonio Margarito would be eager to knock him out earlier than Mayweather did as another means of calling him out.

Joshua Clottey is no Jose Luis Castillo. The initials may almost be the same, but any comparisons end there, to his credit and detriment. Castillo’s mere name is a threat because it carries with it the people he’s dismantled with sound boxing prowess over the years.

But Corrales solved him in their fight of the year match-up and so far, Clottey has only found two ways to lose; one by questionable disqualification and the other by decision after fighting with an injury.

Clottey’s granite chin carries him on where other fighters might falter and he has speed and power enough to give any opponent pause.

Corrales can’t count on his body going down to 140 and he can’t count on faring better at 154. Continuing to fight and in arguably most talented division, would place him in the same company with Demarcus Corley and Sharmba Mitchell.

The time for a tune-up has come and gone and the measure of what’s left of him has been hung out on a laundry line for all to see against a good fighter seeking the keys to greatness. Corrales needs to consider words that begin with the letter “r” and end with the letter “e” and I don’t mean “revenge”.

And Joshua Clottey has arrived. By giving Corrales a one-sided loss on the judge’s scorecards, the elite must take notice. Not because Corrales was amongst their ranks, but because he had been an undeniable champion at lightweight and because Clottey genuinely deserves it.

Now maybe we all will know who Joshua Clottey is. Perhaps Kermit Cintron will put his IBF title on the line against him. Perhaps the winner of the Williams-Margarito bout will face him. But the next time we see him, Joshua Clottey will not be just the other man in the ring. He will be one-half of the fighter’s fans have come to watch.