Corley is also a fashion designer who designs his own boxing attire.
Corley started in professional boxing on May 17 of 1996, knocking out Aaron Smith in the first round. His next bout, against Dan Piffer, had the same result.
After winning six fights in 1996, Corley went up in quality of opposition in 1997, starting out by beating Ruben Aguayo in Phoenix, Arizona, also in the first round. He also won six fights that year.
Corley began 1998 by winning four in a row, but then he faced the first setback of his career when he had to settle for a three round technical draw with Dillon Carew.
1999 was an interesting year for Corley. He lost for the first time, when he was beaten by Daniel Lujan by a decision, but later on, he got his first major win, when he beat the future world Jr. Welterweight champion Ener Julio by a decision in 12 rounds to win the United States 140 pound championship. In addition to that, he won three more bouts that year.
In 2000, Corley won four fights, but none of them were for the world title. Julio, meanwhile, went on to become the WBO's world champion by defeating Randall Bailey by decision, and then the WBO made Corley their number one Jr. Welterweight contender.
Corley began 2001 by defeating Carew, by a decision in ten, and, after Julio had to vacate the WBO Jr. Welterweight throne because of an injury, Corley was matched with Felix Flores of Puerto Rico for the vacant world title, and he knocked out Flores in the first round, to become world Jr. Welterweight champion.
After the September 11 Terrorist attacks against Washington, New York and Pennsylvania, Corley, who is trained by a firefighter, began dedicating his fights to the victims of those attacks.
Corley began 2002 by beating Julio again, this time with the world title involved, by a twelve round decision. However, those good news soon turned into very bad news: In April of that year, his brother Michael, whom he nicknamed Uncle Ricky, was murdered, and Corley took off one year from boxing while he tried to recover from having his brother killed.
On January 4 of 2003, he returned to the ring with a 12 round, title retaining decision over former world champion Bailey.
Corley lost his WBO world title on July 12 of that year to former IBF world champion Zab Judah by a twelve round split decision. The possibility of fighting the division's other world champion, Kostya Tszyu, in a future, remains alive, however.
His record stands at 28 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw, with 16 wins by knockout.