Chucho Castillo

The reason i asked is because there is a Mexican news archive called Hemerotica that's got reports of some of those early fights you mention in the obituary but obviously they're in Spanish. Loads of early stuff on Ruben as well including his fight with Julio Guerrero, good fighter who he just crushed on his way up. Interesting reading.

 

Al, I recently re-reviewed this fight. Here was what I wrote:

What a great fight. I was fortunate to see almost all that card back in the day on tape delay (about 6 months of a delay). I saw the Olivares-Galeano fight and the Halimi Gutierrez-Fernando Cabanela fight. Didn't see the Napoles-Josselin fight but the other 3 were competitive and exciting. I think i scored Herrera-Castillo something like 7-4 or 7-5 at the time for Herrera, but again, what a fight. What I notice now is that you cannot make a mistake against Castillo or he will have you on the counter punch. If you miss or leave yourself open or get complacent he will have you on the counter-punch. So this turned into a hard-punching chess match. There were a few issues with the youtube video, which would freeze up for a few seconds just about every round. You can hear the commentary continuing during the freeze-up and then it would start in normal time, so you miss a few seconds and in this fight with every round so close that's a bit nerve-wracking. Anyways here we go. California scoring of 1 point for a round and none for even rounds.

Herrera-Castillo II

Round 1: Even
Round 2: Castillo
Round 3: Herrera
Round 4: Castillo (the video on this round was only about a minute and a half)
Round 5: Herrera
Round 6: Castillo
Round 7: Castillo
Round 8: Herrera
Round 9: Herrera
Round 10: Herrera (the freeze-up in this round lasted about 15 seconds)
Round 11: Castillo
Round 12: Even

5-5 Draw

The freeze-ups were infuriating because a fight this close can be determined by what you're missing. Round 4 and 10 were obviously an issue. but I hope it doesn't detract you guys from watching what is a good fight.

 

Nice one Scar, what can I say! I had Chucho just nicking it, I'll have another look at that when I get a chance and rescore it. You had it Herrera and then a draw. The judges had it split and very tight. There can be no arguments about the result in a fight like that and what a quality fight it was! Glad you enjoyed it. I envy you being around at that time following all those fellas.

 

I got lucky, dude. A local station here in the Midwest subscribed to 'Boxing from the Olympic' and 'Boxing from the Forum', so I was watching west coast boxing twice a week. I was like a kid in a candy store (or as I would say when I lived in Birmingham - a sweet shop, LOL!).

 

lol, I can't complain, i've been lucky enough to be in a position to meet most of my childhood heroes from the British scene. I still see them from time to time. I've been lucky enough to meet old timers like Ernie Roderick, Peter Kane and Larry Gains when I was a kid.

 

Wow! Great childhood, dude.