Castillo (left) floors Corrales to win their second clash in October

The fight could have gone ahead for no title but Corrales decided it was too dangerous to fight at a heavier weight.

"I have a wife and children and I want to see them grow up," said Corrales, who gave up the $1.3m he would have made by fighting Castillo a third time.

"All I can say is I'm sorry," said Castillo, who weighed in four times.

"Those are just empty words," said Sacramento-born Corrales, who weighed the 135lb (61kg) limit on his first try. "I wanted to hit him in the mouth."

I'm mortified and embarrassed. It's a disgrace Castillo's promoter Bob Arum

Mexican Castillo, 32, could get no closer to the limit than 139.5lb (62.8kg) during his four attempts in two hours.

He also failed to make the weight on the last occasion they met last October, when Corrales, 28, paid the price for going ahead with the fight.

He lost on a fourth-round knock-out to a fighter who did not have to make the same sacrifice to make the weight.

On Friday his manager, promoter and trainer all told him he shouldn't fight because it was too risky against a fighter who so heavily outweighed him.

"If he got hurt I could never live with myself again," said Corrales' promoter Gary Shaw.

His trainer Joe Goossen added: "He (Corrales) drained himself to make 135lb (61kg) and the other guy didn't have to do it."

Castillo's own promoter Bob Arum, who has promoted fights for 40 years, said he couldn't remember a fight being canceled in similar circumstances.

"I'm mortified and embarrassed by what happened here," he said. "It's a disgrace. If I was Corrales I wouldn't fight either."

Promoters had sold about 8,000 tickets for the fight, and Arum said he stood to lose $1m from the cancellation.

The undercard will go on without the main event, but anyone with a ticket was offered a full refund.

The main event will now be Armenian-born Australian Vic Darchinyan defending his IBF flyweight title against Mexico's Luis Maldonado.