“I wasn’t dizzy or nothing like that,” Carrington said to Ring Champs. “But my back leg went gone. I was like, ‘Oh.’ My leg is gone.”
The feeling did not disappear between rounds. He said the instability lingered and that he spent the next round trying to regain control while showing Castro he was not in trouble.
“I was still a little shaky,” he said. “Even in the next round, my legs still felt a little weird.”
The opponent in front of him added urgency. Castro entered the bout coming off a loss to Stephen Fulton in September 2024 and a 16-month layoff. With a vacant belt at stake, he had every reason to press once he sensed weakness.
Carrington chose to change geography rather than retreat. He said Castro’s power was most effective at range, particularly with straight right hands, so he closed the distance and worked inside, where he felt more secure and could control exchanges.
“My inside game, that’s where I live,” Carrington said.
As the rounds progressed, Carrington saw Castro’s output drop and his reactions slow. By the ninth, he found the opening that produced the stoppage and the title. He never believed he was behind.
“If I was to lose, I had to get knocked out,” Carrington said.
The belt now sits with Carrington. The rounds where his legs failed him showed how he handles a fight when everything does not go to plan, and that may tell more about his ceiling than the finish itself.
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