Joel Casamayor TKO10 Michael Katsidis, March 22 at Cabazon, Calif.

If Katsidis is on the card, you can pretty much be assured a slugfest. But folks had their doubts about the quality of this bout because Casamayor, defending the lineal lightweight championship, had looked awful in his previous fight and had been known to stink out his opponents. So the sheer thrills and drama of this slugfest came as a surprise. It started fast, with Casamayor dropping Katsidis twice in the first round, and the excitement never let up. Katsidis fought his way back into the bout and was beginning to wear down Casamayor, who was then knocked out of the ring and onto the apron by a body shot in the sixth round. Katsidis led on two scorecards heading into the 10th when Casamayor knocked him down with a left Katsidis never saw. With his big heart Katsidis continued, but after he ate another flush shot referee Jon Schorle called off the exhilarating bout and Katsidis suffered his first defeat. Moments after the stoppage, HBO's Kellerman summed it up perfectly: "What a shocking turn of events," he said. "When it looked like, by the fourth or fifth round, that Katsidis was beating the fight out of Casamayor, that the script was being written that the young, new fighter on the scene was going to emerge as lightweight champion -- for the old lion to pull off that kind of knockout was incredible."