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Originally Posted by AP Newswire
By KEN RITTER, Associated Press Writer
May 8, 2007
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Diego "Chico" Corrales, who won titles in two weight classes and won one of the most exciting boxing matches in recent years, died in a high-speed motorcycle crash. He was 29.
Corrales was riding a new motorcycle Monday evening when he ran into the back of a car while trying to pass at high speed on a busy residential street about 7 miles west of the Las Vegas Strip, police said Tuesday.
Corrales was thrown from the motorcycle, which collided with an oncoming car, and pronounced dead at the scene of the 7:22 p.m. crash.
His promoter, Gary Shaw, said Corrales, whose career had faltered the past two years, recently bought a racing motorcycle and was riding it when he was killed.
"He fought recklessly and he lived recklessly," Shaw said. "That was his style."
Las Vegas police blamed speed and inexperience for the crash, saying it appeared Corrales did not have a valid Nevada driver's or motorcycle license.
"We're trying to calculate the speed," Sgt. Tracy McDonald said. "It appears he was well above the posted speed limit" of 35 mph.
McDonald said it will take about two weeks for investigators to receive results of drug and alcohol tests on Corrales, who was wearing a helmet.
A Florida man who was driving the oncoming car escaped injury and a 39-year-old Las Vegas woman driving the car that Corrales tried to pass reported a minor shoulder injury, McDonald said.
Corrales, who fought most of his career at 130 pounds, was a big puncher best known for getting up after two 10th-round knockdowns to stop Jose Luis Castillo on May 7, 2005, in what the Boxing Writers Association of America and numerous boxing publications called the fight of the year.
Corrales, though, was knocked out by Castillo in the rematch and then had three straight fights undermined at the weigh-in.
Castillo couldn't make weight twice against Corrales, and the second time Corrales refused to fight him at the higher weight, costing himself a $1.3 million payday. And then Corrales came in over the weight limit for his WBC 135-pound title defense against Joel Casamayor, and went on to lose the fight.
He lost his last three fights, including his final one April 7 against Joshua Clottey in Springfield, Mo. He had moved up two weight divisions to welterweight for that fight.
Corrales was born in Sacramento, Calif., and lived in Las Vegas in recent years. He won his first 33 fights and held a piece of the 130-pound title before he was stopped by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a unification fight in January 2001.
Corrales was sent to jail on a domestic abuse charge after that fight, and didn't fight again for two years. He came back to fight a trilogy against Casamayor, losing two of the three fights, and split a pair of fights with Castillo.
"He always cared about the fans and gave them their money's worth," Shaw said. "He was a true warrior. He was what boxing stood for, and what boxing is all about."
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Diego Corrales passes away...
