By David Sauvage

On Saturday at the Mandalay Bay, Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo fought one for the ages. Corrales made the greatest comeback in the televised history of the sport.

But the amazing part was how.

Barring the beauty, it wasn't Hagler versus Hearns, even Barrera versus Morales. Those were classics in the classical sense, where each boxer boxed to maximum advantage, employing whatever style had got them there.

Not so with Corrales. He threw his style in the trash. It was an odd choice when you consider Castillo suited him perfectly. Hunched down, chest concave, arms pointing inward—here's a guy who must get close. Corrales, by contrast, is built for distance. A lanky five feet, ten inches, his 135 pounds hurt from afar.

That's how he mowed down Acelino Freitas in his last fight. That's how

he out-pointed super-crafty Joel Casamayor in the fight before. That's what I would have told him to try. Only Corrales wasn't listening to me. He was listening to trainer Joe Goosen, who told him different.

Buckling down, squaring his shoulders, and charging into Castillo's charge, Corrales seemed to be saying, "I can do it too." By the third round, he looked foolish. Al Bernstein called it "a strategic nightmare." By the fifth round, Corrales had made the adjustment, dropping a few jabs onto Castillo's face.

Then he changed his mind. As if success were boring him.

By the tenth round, Corrales had proven he could fight Castillo's fight as well as Castillo, but not much better. This was no normal seesaw battle, where one guy takes one round and the next takes the next. This was exchange by exchange, moment by moment. Until Castillo landed a hook that dropped Corrales like a sack of potatoes.

The moral couldn't have been clearer. Don't fight inside with an inside fighter. Don't bang with a banger. For God' s sake, get out of his way. Except Joe Goosen disagreed. Putting Corrales' mouthpiece back in, he told his charge to charge yet again.

"Get inside on him," he said.

Which made even less sense when Corrales fell again. But Joe Goosen repeated, this time adding emphasis, "You got to fucking get inside on him now." As if the only way Corrales could win was to keep doing what had utterly failed him.

Except it worked.

Between the second knockdown and the final stoppage, it's impossible to say whether Castillo and Corrales were fighting on the inside or outside. It was a constantly shifting space, where both seemed a punch away from landing the last. Only Corrales was right. Before he could master his own final flurry, Castillo was out on his feet.

Corrales said before the fight, "I respect his power, but I am not concerned about getting knocked down. Because I know I will get up." Could he have been telling the truth? Did he decide, in some twisted way, to end up on the canvas? Maybe he wasn't fighting to win. Maybe he was fighting to win in historical fashion.

Going inside. Banging with a banger. It was all so stupid.

It was also brilliant.

After the fight, Corrales barely mustered the energy to raise his arms. "I wanted to prove I was a warrior," he said several times. "It was an honor." For us too, Diego. Us too.