Jorge Castro

Jorge Fernando Castro was born on 18 August 1967 in Caleta Olivia, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. He grew up between family homes in the south and elsewhere in the country. In 1985, while preparing to turn professional, he suffered a bicycle accident that left him so badly hurt that doctors said he would never box for a living. He rehabilitated and made his professional debut on 14 February 1987 in Caleta Olivia, stopping Patricio German Caracci in the first round.

Castro built a heavy local calendar through the late 1980s and early 1990s, winning the Argentine light middleweight title in 1989 and the South American title in 1990. He lost a WBC light middleweight challenge to Terry Norris in Paris in December 1991 and a ten round decision to Roy Jones Jr. in Pensacola in June 1992.

On 12 August 1994 in San Miguel de Tucuman he defeated Reggie Johnson by split decision for the vacant WBA middleweight title. He stopped Alex Ramos in two rounds, then produced his most famous night on 10 December 1994 in Monterrey against John David Jackson. Badly behind and nearly stopped, he knocked Jackson down three times in the ninth and retained the title by knockout. The Ring named the fight its Fight of the Year. Castro defended again, including another win over Johnson, before losing the belt to Shinji Takehara by decision in Tokyo on 19 December 1995.

He later beat Roberto Duran in Mar del Plata in 1997 and lost the rematch in Panama. Cruiserweight title bids against Juan Carlos Gomez (2000) and Vassiliy Jirov (2002) failed. His last fight was a second round technical knockout of Jose Luis Herrera in Mar del Plata on 27 January 2007. Career record: 144 fights, 130 wins (90 by knockout), 11 losses, 3 draws.

In June 2005 Castro crashed a car in Buenos Aires, suffering a collapsed lung and broken ribs and needing emergency surgery; he recovered and returned to boxing. In May 2007 he entered Gran Hermano Famosos on Telefe and was the eighth contestant eliminated after 58 days. He competed on Bailando 2011 with Sofia Macaggi. After retiring he opened a gym in Temperley that during the COVID-19 pandemic also served as a community dining hall under the Locomotora Castro name, and he supported similar social work in Greater Buenos Aires.

Castro died on 14 October 2026 at the age of 59. Argentine outlets including TN and La Nacion reported that he collapsed in the slot machine area of a bingo hall in Moron, Buenos Aires Province, early that morning. Medical staff who arrived confirmed he had died. Police reports mentioned that he lived with diabetes and that the episode may have been linked to his insulin treatment, but prosecutors at UFI No. 8 of Moron opened an inquiry and no official cause of death had been publicly confirmed at the time of the first obituaries.

Castro remains best known for the 1994 Jackson fight, often cited among Argentine boxing's greatest turnarounds, and for a long career against world class opposition including Norris, Jones, Duran, Gomez and Jirov. Fans and journalists remembered Locomotora as a durable, crowd pleasing champion whose later community kitchens extended his public life beyond the ring.