Mayweather vs Castillo I: The 2002 Decision That Still Divides Boxing

On 20 April 2002, Floyd Mayweather Jr. stepped up to lightweight for the first time and took the WBC title from José Luis Castillo at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. All three judges gave him the decision. A large part of the crowd, HBO's unofficial scorer and the punch counters saw the fight differently, and more than twenty years later it remains the closest anyone came to beating Mayweather as a professional.

A Champion Too Big for 130

Mayweather, born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in February 1977, had arrived as a professional after a bronze medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He won the WBC super featherweight title in 1998 by stopping Genaro Hernández in eight rounds and went on to defend it eight times, the most celebrated of those nights being his one-sided win over the unbeaten Diego Corrales in January 2001. The last defense came against Jesús Chávez in November 2001.

By then the 130-pound limit was becoming a punishment. According to the Wikipedia account of the Castillo fight, Mayweather said he had gone without food for the four days before the Chávez bout. Moving up to 135 pounds was the obvious next step, and he chose to do it against the division's WBC champion rather than a softer opponent. Outside the ring, the build-up was clouded by his conviction on two domestic violence counts, for which he received a suspended sentence. Bob Arum, his promoter at the time, insisted the case was not affecting his preparation. The bookmakers agreed, installing Mayweather as roughly a 5-1 favorite.

El Temible from Empalme

José Luis Castillo, born in December 1973 in Empalme, Sonora, was the kind of champion who rarely made headlines outside Mexico. Known as "El Temible," he had taken the WBC lightweight belt in June 2000 as an underdog, beating Stevie Johnston by majority decision. Boxing News put his record at 45-5-1 going into the Mayweather fight, which was his fourth defense of the title. He was 28, three years older than the challenger, and his style relied on steady pressure, body punching and physical strength rather than speed.

The vacant Ring magazine lightweight championship was also on the line at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. HBO carried the fight in the United States, and Johnston, the man Castillo had dethroned, fought on the undercard.

Early Rounds: Mayweather in Control

For the first third of the fight, the move up in weight looked effortless. Mayweather used his hand speed and footwork to outbox Castillo over roughly the first five rounds, and the champion struggled to land anything meaningful on the target in front of him.

Something was wrong with Mayweather's left side, however. Between rounds he complained to his corner about his left shoulder. How and when that injury happened is described in slightly different ways. In his HBO interview after the fight, Mayweather said he had hurt the shoulder on the final day of training camp, while his Wikipedia biography records a torn left rotator cuff two days before the bout. Either way, the jab and left hook that usually controlled distance were not fully available to him.

Castillo Turns the Fight

From the sixth round onward, the bout changed character. Castillo stopped chasing Mayweather's head and went to the body, cut off the ring and leaned his weight on the challenger along the ropes. Boxing News writer James Slater later described this middle and late stretch as a template for how Mayweather could be troubled: pressure, body work and physical force to drain a quicker man.

Both fighters lost points along the way. Castillo was penalized in the eighth round for hitting on the break, and Mayweather lost a point in the tenth for illegal use of the elbows. Watching ringside, many observers felt the momentum had swung firmly to the Mexican. The championship rounds were close, and when the final bell rang, a good part of the arena believed Castillo had done enough to keep his belt.

The Cards and the Count

The three official judges did not share that view. They scored the fight 116-111, 115-111 and 115-111, all for Mayweather, a unanimous decision that took him to 29-0 and made him a two-division champion. The decision drew boos from a crowd that had largely sided with Castillo, according to the Associated Press.

Outside opinion split sharply. HBO's unofficial scorer Harold Lederman had Castillo winning 115-111. Dan Rafael, then writing for USA Today, scored it even at 114-114. The Associated Press, on the other hand, had Mayweather ahead by the same 115-111 margin as two of the judges. The punch statistics favored the loser: Castillo was credited with 203 punches landed to Mayweather's 157, and the gap in power punches was wider still, 173 to 66.

Arum, who promoted Mayweather, was among the critics, describing the scoring as ludicrous and calling for a second fight. Castillo earned a purse of $1.1 million, Mayweather $2.2 million.

Surgery and a Long Road to the Rematch

After the fight, Mayweather underwent surgery on the left shoulder and pointed to the damaged rotator cuff as a reason for his difficulties. Castillo was not persuaded. In the build-up to the second fight, the Associated Press reported that he dismissed the idea that the injury had made any real difference.

Getting the rematch made proved difficult. A date of 10 August in Los Angeles, on HBO pay-per-view, fell through when Mayweather refused to fight there, citing distrust of the judges and the prospect of a heavily pro-Castillo crowd. The bout was moved to 5 October in Nevada as a regular HBO broadcast, then pushed back again when Castillo developed Achilles tendinitis in late September. It was finally set for 7 December 2002 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

Even then the promotion stumbled. Mayweather and his manager James Prince missed a press conference three days before the fight, and Arum responded by moving the heavyweight bout between Wladimir Klitschko and Jameel McCline into the main event slot. "I want to apologize for him," Arum said, according to the Associated Press. Castillo, at 46-5-1, came in as a 3-1 underdog.

Mandalay Bay: A Different Mayweather

The second fight was a deliberately cautious performance. Mayweather boxed largely on the retreat, threw fewer than 400 punches, relied heavily on his jab and avoided the exchanges Castillo had won in April. Castillo was the busier man but far less accurate. CompuBox credited Mayweather with 162 of 399 punches landed, against 137 of 603 for Castillo, and the jab count went 88-36 to the champion.

The official cards read 116-113, 115-113 and 115-113 for Mayweather. This time there was much less dispute: HBO's Lederman and commentator Larry Merchant each had Mayweather winning 115-113, and the Associated Press scored it 116-112 his way. Mayweather said afterwards that his plan had been to keep boxing and throw no power shots. Castillo admitted, as reported by Boxing News, that he could not work out his opponent in the rematch.

A Night That Still Gets Argued

Mayweather went on to win titles at 140 pounds and above and retired unbeaten. Castillo's most famous night came three years later, in his 2005 war with Diego Corrales, which won Fight of the Year from The Ring and the Boxing Writers Association of America. The rematch settled the title, but it did not settle April 2002. Whenever Mayweather's perfect record comes up, the first Castillo fight is usually the one critics point to, with an official decision on one side and a punch count and a booing crowd on the other.

Sources

• José Luis Castillo vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr., Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
• Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. José Luis Castillo II, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
• Floyd Mayweather Jr., Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
• José Luis Castillo, Wikipedia, accessed October 2026
• On this day: José Luis Castillo creates blueprint on how to beat Floyd Mayweather, James Slater, Boxing News, 20 April 2020
• On this day: Floyd Mayweather Jnr beats José Luis Castillo in rematch, Boxing News (fight report by Bob Mee)
• Mayweather-Castillo fight no longer main attraction, Associated Press via ESPN, 5 December 2002