Donald Curry

...and perhaps Mendoza knows full well how good Curry is and created this for the benefit of newbies who may not have been lurking forums as long and may be like blank slates where Curry is concerned?

 

fair enough.

 

It's delicious.

 

He was awesome. But the awesomeness didn't last..

 

Curry's prime < actual curry powder's shelf life. :verysad

 

I think Donald was a Chandelier Fighter, Beautiful to look at, Sparkling, Bright and Classy.. When out of reach.. But should a Dirty industrial Hammer make contact with it, then its vulnerabilities could become apparent,

The shock to many was that Lloyd Honeygan Played the part of the Ballpen, by this time, whatever Donalds weight making situation, he was a very conceited boxer, used to seeing opponents looking like they were going to the Gallows, Against Lloyd, as usual, he assumed that he was going to another ceremonial beheading, But Lloyd was a man intent on revolution, it was an Ambush waiting to happen, along with Lloyds Mental toughness and confidence, he was indeed fast and talented, by the american Media, unappreciably so, Don was not helped by the boxing Media anointing him the automatic successor in waiting to Messrs Hagler, and Leonard (with Milt McCrory, the Iceman being mooted as a new Hearns, Colin Jones rather ended that Marketing Ploy..)

If Marlon Starling had Attacked Donald like he later did Breland, A Toaster instead of a Coaster... Mayhap Don would not have Flattered to deceive, A very good "On Top" Fighter Certainly, But put a Rolls Royce in a Race with a Humvee...down a Dirt Back Road.. and Bits start to fall off the Roller... The Precision instument starts to fall apart, It might of proved interesting if Colin Jones had not been cut out of it, ? he was know to be dogged and come back at opponents,

I think Don was destined to fall apart when dragged into a trench with a talented and mentally strong fighter, Certainly at Middleweight, of Course Mike McCullam curtailed these aspirations at Lt-Middle, The scribes would have to focus their prematurely grandising Ink elsewhere, No disrespect to Donald, who was what he was, a class fighter with vulnerabilities, as are indeed most, but more the vested interest of the agenda merchants who want to surf in the next generation of superstars. and Supposed Greats..and keep the tills ringing... They got it wrong on this Occasion.

 

WBC, WBA and IBF world champion until that fateful night.

I was there.

Too complacent. That resulted in shock and shock almost always leads to a defeat. When you have to adjust in the ring, to an opponent who is a lot more than you expected, and an opponent who wants everything you have with every sinew in their body - you tend to lose.

Prior to that night (which incidentally will be 30 years ago next year), Don was lauded and undefeated.

After that night he was never the same.

However, much of that is down to the manner of his two wins immediatey following it. You've got to remember that his next two victories were both the result of disqualifications. He got badly roughed up by Santos and I don't think he should have taken the McCallum fight after it. He'd not proven that he'd recovered from what I consider to be one of the biggest shocks in boxing history.

If you were back in 1986 now, the day before the fight, the odds you could get on Curry losing were huge. Some of the biggest boxing bets of the 1980's were placed that night. Some walked away very, very well off. Others couldn't believe what they'd just witnessed.

But I disgress...

Whilst Don went on to string a run of victories together, he was then victim of another shock - the Jacquot defeat. I'm pretty sure most classed that as the shock of the year at the time (I did).

He carried on too long and the defeats near the end of his career against Nunn (I think?) and Norris would have stopped most boxers from continuing.

Norris is often forgotten, but in the fights preceding his win over Curry, he'd beaten Jacquot and another guy with a familiar name - Sugar Ray Leonard.

I think Don had a very good career. He just made a very bad decision one day. He took an opponent for granted and he paid a career defining price.

An unforgettable evening.

 

As suggested more poetically above, Don Curry was a front-runner. When he was "on top" he indeed looked very good, but deconstruct his record and you get two good, albeit close and less-than-scintilating, wins over Marlon Starling and a KO of a highly-overrated (and laregely already exposed by Colin Jones) Milt McCrory.

The rest are the "usual suspects," guys any up-and-comer should beat.

I found him (at the time and in retrospect) to be very good offensively and very suspect defensively. If it hadn't been Ragmuffin, someone else would have exposed him. The rest of Curry's career exposed him anyway, as those defensive holes were never plugged.

The idea that he should have moved up, to me, is hindsight. He was making 147 and was beating the people in front of him without struggle. There was no indication of weakness or slippage. It's like saying Marvin Hagler should have moved up to super middle ... why? He was king at what had become a fairly weak 147-pound division, so unless someone at 154 was offering bigger money then it's just after he lost that moving up becomes a way to rewrite history.

He was good, not great. To put him, even at his peak, on par with Leonard and Hearns ... no way. Do you really see prime Leonard or Hearns losing to a pedestrian fighter like Honeyghan like that? And if Curry was past prime, exactly how did that happen in a 9-month span (with an easy tuneup win betwee) after the McCrory fight?

Just no.

 

The second Starling fight is an absolute classic bout.Nothing less than scintillating about it.Sublime skills on display from both men.And Starling gave it his all, it's very harsh to suggest he would have beaten Curry had he worked harder, he wasn't in his sometimes lazy coasting mode at all in that fight.

it's definitely true that Curry was more one for the polite chessmatch kind of fight than taking on someone who was capable of going to war with him though.

I do think he looks clearly weight drained against Honeyghan(not past prime, i don't think anyone could justify that excuse and it's never been bandied about much that i've seen) but also that it was the kind of fighter he would always be troubled by...an awkward fast powerpunching fighter that can slug as wel as box.honeyghan was no pedestrian fighter at this stage, though he quickly went downhill when seemed to convince himself he just charge in and bomb guys out shortly after(i guess those soft defences against faded 140lbers were a bad idea and contributing factor to that)...the way Curry just rolled over and quit when it became clear he wouldn't be able to just have a formality defence against Lloyd was indeed a very poor effort.

btw the idea he should have moved up was not hindsight(though if it was that doesn't necessarily make it a negative, people can make shrewd observations after the fact too in this sport you know) it was well discussed at the time, and his troubles making weight were known and publicised.Though of course it was nowhere near to the extent that anyone thought he was going to get beat at 147, but you can bet that if he had actually been able to dig down and grind out a win against Honeyghan he would have been moved up quickly, he was as dry as a bone walking into the ring that night.

 

You're wrong about the weight issue. He was having trouble making 147. He had tested 154 in 1985 and looked fit at that weight. The boxing mags. at the time talked about how drained he was for the Honeyghan fight. Then after that fight he finally moved up but the damage was done. Hagler, on the other hand, was fit and strong at 160 lbs throughout his career.

 

Honeyghan wasn't a pedestrian fighter.
He was actually a hungry, undefeated fighter at the top of his game. He fought a great fight, and proved to be incredibly fast and elusive.
Anyone is free to go back and watch the fight. Honeyghan looks top-notch.

And in defence of Curry compared to Leonard and Hearns ... those two legends simply didn't defend their welterweight titles enough to make any great claims. If a champion defends enough times and takes on worthy contenders and all comers, he risks losing sooner or later.

 

As Lloyd himself said to me at the York Hall in Bethnal Green.

" What really got me angry was in the press conference just before the fight, all these journalists were asking Curry what he was going to do next, as if I wasn't even there, and him going along with them. So I went over to him and said. I'll see you in the ring Saturday night you c**t."

According to Lloyd, he saw fear in his eyes at that remark, as I suppose Curry wasn't used to being spoken to in that way.

 

Foxy 01 - I think Lloyds Comment to Don qualifies as a Very Succinct Statement of Intent... I think the writing was on the Bermondsey wall as soon as the fight was signed. " Gone Cobra Hunting "

 

That whole 1980's era was loaded with excellent welterweights and had some of them not been stumbling over one another, it would have been interesting see if a couple of them might have had more standout legacies.. At the beginning of the decade you had Leonard, Hearns, Duran and Benitez.. Then later there was Curry, Starling, Brown, Breland, and Honeyghan. Wouldn't be surprised if I forgot a name or two. Just an amazing era.