Joe Goossen was very nervous.

The last thing Diego Corrales needed only five months after somehow winning one of the most brutal battles in recent boxing history was an immediate rematch with Jose Luis Castillo. Goossen knew that wasn’t nearly enough time for the respected trainer’s fighter to recover from all the physical damage he endured in their incredible lightweight title fight in May 2005 at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.

Corrales’ left eye was almost swollen shut when he got up from a pair of 10th-round knockdowns and came back to stop Castillo in that same 10th round. Castillo brutalized Corrales’ body in that unforgettable battle as well.

“You could go 20 fights and not get hit as much as each of those guys got hit in one fight,” Goossen told krikya360.com. “That one fight was like having a dozen fights in one year. It was that brutal of a fight.”

Yet there they were, back at it again in October 2005.

Castillo came in 3½ pounds overweight for their rematch, which he won by fourth-round knockout at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. The first three rounds of their rematch mirrored the unusually violent nature of their first bout, but Castillo caught Corrales with a left hook that knocked him out early in the fourth round.

Goossen thought it was “sadistic” to schedule their rematch so soon, but promoters Bob Arum (Castillo) and Gary Shaw (Corrales) capitalized on the momentum their fantastic first fight created by bringing their second fight to pay-per-view. Showtime, which aired their initial slugfest live and distributed their rematch, replayed both Corrales-Castillo bouts Friday night.

“Diego was hurting for weeks after that first fight,” Goossen recalled. “I talked to him every day of my life back then. When he got back to the gym, he just wasn’t ready to start training again. That wasn’t even three months after they fought. Think of it like this – you get piled into a bus, you drive it over the cliff, and you happen to survive it. And then they go, ‘Oh, by the way, we’re gonna do it again real soon.’ Chances are you’re not gonna survive the second one.

“It was too soon. It was just too soon, and it worked against us. Now look, Castillo was in the same boat. From what I heard, he was secluded in his home for quite a while after that fight because of his injuries and fatigue from the fight. It took a long time for both guys to recover. But I think Castillo probably came out of it a little stronger than Diego did.”

Mexico’s Castillo and Las Vegas’ Corrales were supposed to fight a third time in June 2006. That rubber match was canceled the day before because Castillo came in way overweight for a second straight fight, this time by five pounds.

Almost exactly a year passed between Corrales’ loss to Castillo in their rematch and his third fight against Joel Casamayor. Cuba’s Casamayor beat Corrales by split decision in their 12-round rubber match in October 2006 at Mandalay Bay Events Center.

Corrales fought just once more after Casamayor beat him. Goossen didn’t train Corrales for that final fight of his career, a 10-round, unanimous-decision defeat to welterweight contender Joshua Clottey in April 2007 in Springfield, Missouri.

Corrales, 29, died in a motorcycle accident just one month after losing to Clottey, on the two-year anniversary of his classic clash with Castillo.

“His two fights with Castillo took so much out of Diego,” Goossen said. “He just wasn’t the same after those two fights in 2005.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for krikya360.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.