De Leon totally schooled S.T. the next year to gain his crown back. S.T. was an alright fighter, Carlos was a very good one.
Yeah, this fight is a classic example of the more talented guy not winning. People complain about it going too long, but DeLeon was the champ and Padilla wanted to give him every chance to weather the storm. I thought that it was a fair stoppage, both at the time and in retrospect. But modern refs would have almost certainly stopped it sooner. This fight takes me back to when I was first really getting into the sport as a young man. Used to watch these matches every weekend on the over the air networks.