You’ve heard the one about the worn down boxer with substance abuse problems, brain damage, and debt. DeMarcus “Chop Chop” Corley has seen his share of bad luck, and he’s a three-time boxing champion at 38, struggling to find an opponent.
When you look at Corley’s 39-20 record it does not indicate an elite fighter, but it’s the basis of what makes this story so disheartening. Corley has spent a good part of his career fighting above his natural weight of 135 lbs against much bigger men, as well as fighting top prospects on enemy turf. For example, the Washington, D.C. native won his first WBO Welterweight title in 2001 against Felix Flores by first round Technical Knock Out after taking the fight on five days’ notice. Oddly, this win is what Corley regrets the most about his career.
“Most people don’t know this, but I won the belt in June of 2001 and 9/11 happened in September, so I just didn’t fight,” says Corley.
Despite the rust, Corley went on to successfully defend his title the following year against former champ Ener Julio–who had been stripped of the WBO title due to a failed eye exam. Corley then faced Randall Bailey and points out, “…at the time that was the 26-0 Randall Bailey with 26 KOs.” History and Miguel Cotto haven’t been kind to Bailey’s career, but the 2001 incarnation was one the most feared lower weight power punchers alive and Corley outclassed him.
His title reign came to a halt when he was pitted against highly taunted prospect, Zab Judah, to whom he lost a close split decision. And who would a former champion fight after losing his belt? Corley drew a a young Floyd Mayweather and lost. When Corley speaks about his career highlights, the Mayweather fight comes first: “You know I went the distance with Mayweather, and I almost knocked his ass out, and I will never forget that,” he says.
Corley speaks concisely; his cadences tell you that if given another chance, he could finish any fight. Corley has a pattern of facing future superstars at their early career stages. His following bout was against another up and comer, Cotto, who stopped him in five rounds. Cotto was flat out too big for him.
“At the weigh in, an older man came up to me talking all this stuff about how Cotto’s going to beat me and such. Cotto’s camp began to yell out and my camp began to say something back to them as well. Somehow this older man from Puerto Rico, not a young guy might I add–now keep in mind this was right after “Tito” Trinidad vs. Bernard Hopkins—[the old man] kept saying Cotto was going to beat me down, I keep telling him we will see tomorrow, won’t we. The older man pulled out a knife and explained that we will see right now and started to walk toward me.”
Corley laughs because the cops shut down the noise quickly. But the environment for the Cotto fight in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, he says, was an out of control mob against one man. After, overseas work in Europe was nothing. Even if it meant fighting a boxer, a referee, and three judges at the same time.
“The only way I could win is if I got ‘em out of there,” he says.
Corley greatly detested the fact Ruslan Provodnikov, coming off a close loss to current WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley, beat him in Ekaterinburg, Russia. Provodnikov has since avoided a rematch despite Corley showing up at Provodnikov’s events and issuing public challenges. Corley maintains that he won the fight, and remains visibly bitter.
Either way, Corley deserves better. Corley wants tough fights. He doesn’t care as much about his record as he does fair fights and paydays. But at his age, promoters seem to only want him to fight much younger prospects.
“No one wants to fight me,” he says bluntly, and it’s tough to disagree.
The 38-year-old Corley is now moving down in division to lightweight, a move he wished he had of done for the whole of his career. He faults the fact that no one explained that he was coming in as a lightweight at light welterweight, often outweighed by upward to 18 pounds by opponents.
IBF lightweight champion Miguel Vasquez is his number one target, but he clarifies that John Molina, Dannie Williams, and Antonio DeMarco are all fights he’d jump at. Even Hank Lundy, a doppleganger in terms of hard professional roads traveled, would make for a bankable nostalgia ticket. Corley explains that this event almost happened a year ago, but blames Lundy’s promotional team for stalling on negotiations.
What motivated me to write this piece was that I got a call, out of the blue, from Corley. It was a brief chat during which he detailed his hard luck.
Corley had been the sparring partner for Danny Garcia going into his fight with Judah. During practice, Garcia reported thumb and rib injuries and Corley was let go when the Judah fight failed to materialize. He left for Spain to help English fighter Kell Brook prepare for Devon Alexander, another bout that never happened.
So he’s back in camp with Garcia as a sparring partner, still waiting on his promoter to get him a fight. Yet no young guy wants to take a chance against him. Being signed to a smaller promoter only hurts Corley as it seems that neither Top Rank or Golden Boy are willing to take a chance on feeding one of their young guys to him because they would get no subsequent control over Corley’s career. It’s such a relatable story: The undervalued employee who never gets a promotion because the people above him or her fear a shift in the balance of power that will not benefit them.
But I am a little biased. I am a Chop Chop Corley fan. All of us have a little “Chop Chop” in us: Working hard, hardly complaining, hoping for one shot to prove ourselves. It’s one of the most likeable stories in boxing yet Corley’s narrative remains more obscure than an out of print indie rock album. Corley took on fighters who went on to become stars, and did so when no one else would. He’s given everything to boxing, and boxing owes him one last run in his true weight class.