Why in gods name did he drop off the face of the Earth after Arguello upset him in maybe his best late career win? He had a damned good little LWW title run.
.............I don't think it was as much Arguello as it was Lonnie Smith, who dropped him five times, the last time flat on his face, when he lost his 140-pound crown. The loss devastated him; I remember him in tears at the postfight press conference. He'd been dropped a couple times already in successful title defenses leading up to that (once when Leroy Haley butted him in the chin), and I think the Smith fight was proof perhaps even to him that his chin was one of the all-time worst; Smith was no puncher, and he looked like George Foreman out there against Costello. Arguello was probably the proverbial straw on that camel's back.
The book The Black Lights byThomas Hauser focusses strongly on Billy Costello's career. From the book he'd had a gutfull of boxing by the time he called it a day. Great book - well worth reading.
