Diego Corrales grew up in Oak Park, Sacramento. Gang involvement at 13. Watched his best friend die in a drive-by shooting. Found boxing at the Sacramento Police Athletic League gym. That origin matters because of what he built on it — 105 amateur fights, runner-up at the U.S. Amateur Championships, two World Championship appearances. He turned pro at 18 with real structure underneath him.
He won the IBF super featherweight title at 22. Lost it to Floyd Mayweather in 2001. Rebuilt. Won the WBO lightweight title. Then on May 7, 2005, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas against Jose Luis Castillo — he produced what the Boxing Blotter files as the best fight it has ever documented.
Round 10 is the part everyone has seen. Down twice. Mouthpiece out twice. Thirty seconds from a stoppage loss. What happened next was not a comeback. A comeback is when a fighter survives long enough to win. Corrales walked forward and finished Castillo. That is a different thing entirely.
He was 29 years old when he died on May 7, 2007, in a motorcycle accident in Las Vegas. The same city. The same date. Exactly two years later.
The International Boxing Hall of Fame inducted him in the class of 2024. Seventeen years after he was gone.