WBC-WBO lightweight champion Diego Corrales, right, will fight Jose Luis Castillo on Saturday at the Thomas & Mack in a rematch of their May 7 brawl, which Corrales won by a 10th-round knockout. Photo by K.M. Cannon. WBC-WBO lightweight champion Diego Corrales, right, shares a laugh with former champion Jose Luis Castillo, left, at a news conference Wednesday at Wynn Las Vegas. At center is promoter Bob Arum. Photo by K.M. Cannon.

There are many more similarities than differences between Thomas Hearns and Diego Corrales.

Like Hearns, Corrales has been a world champion in multiple divisions, is unusually tall and angular for his weight, has been criticized for having a weak chin, is regarded as one of the hardest punchers of his generation and participated in a fight considered one of the greatest of all time.

But there is a significant difference between the two, largely focusing on the day after each boxer's epic battle.

Corrales was sore and slow to move the day after he stopped Jose Luis Castillo on May 7 at Mandalay Bay in the 10th round of a lightweight title unification bout now regarded as a classic. But he wore a smile after the career-defining win.

Hearns didn't have so much as an achy muscle the morning after his legendary middleweight bout against Marvelous Marvin Hagler in 1985 at Caesars Palace. But Hearns had a stinging pain in his heart after a devastating loss he was never able to avenge.

He was stopped in the third round by Hagler in a fight promoter Bob Arum, who will co-promote Saturday's pay-per-view rematch between Corrales and Castillo at the Thomas & Mack Center, called "breathtaking."

"The ferocity in that fight was simply amazing," Arum said of Hagler-Hearns. "I was sitting next to (comedienne) Joan Rivers and (then-Caesars World chairman) Henry Gluck when Joan turned to me and said, 'Are these fights always like this?' Everybody was stunned at what we were seeing."

Fans were equally stunned by the ferocity with which Castillo and Corrales tore into each other in their first fight.

Corrales surprised most observers, and probably Castillo, by choosing to stand on the inside and trade punches instead of keeping a distance and using his jab.

The lanky Hearns had planned to use his jab and box the powerful and always aggressive Hagler. Hearns worked, he said, all training camp with the idea he would box the entire fight.

"I wanted to teach Marvin Hagler a boxing lesson, and that's what we worked on the whole training camp," Hearns said. "But not too long before the fight started, it all changed. My mind told me I had to change. Boxing was out the door and I had to go out and fight. I basically went out there with the idea that I had to knock out Marvin Hagler, because I lost my legs.

"They felt tired and weak and with the strategy I had come up with, I had to use my legs a lot to box him. So everything we trained for went out the window and I decided was going to go at him and get rid of him."

The first round might have set a record for most powerful blows landed without a knockdown.

Like Corrales in his fight against Castillo, Hearns couldn't understand how his opponent could still be standing.

Through a spokeswoman, Hagler declined to be interviewed for this story, but his trainer, Goody Petronelli, said anyone who thought he could knock out Hagler was making a mistake.

"Marvin had a chin of iron," Petronelli said. "When you can take a great shot, it gives you a lot of confidence to be able to do so many things, and Marvin had that confidence. He knew he could take the best anybody could give him, even from a great puncher like Hearns."

Hearns, who began as a welterweight and is regarded as arguably that division's best puncher ever, was unable to topple Hagler.

Hagler, with a cut on his forehead that threatened to stop the fight, roared out in the third round and knocked out Hearns.

Corrales went down twice in the 10th round, only to get up and stop Castillo.

Hearns, who said he loves to watch Corrales fight, said the key for anyone fighting him is finding a way to withstand his pressure.

"Corrales goes out and tries to impose his will on you," Hearns said. "The pressure is intense, because it's there the whole fight. Even when you hit him with some shots, he's still coming at you with both guns going. It's really tough because there's never a let-up."