Are there any pure boxers you'd take over a peak Donald Curry at Welterweight?

I think Curry would beat them both as well.Just as you say Tito has a better punchers chance.

Oscar would be competitive for sure, but he'd lose by about five points or so imo.Curry's quick straight shots up the middle and precision counters would tag him repeatedly, when Oscar tries to open up and get something going other than his jab.

 

Curry was better inside than Trinidad, all round anyway. His awareness, ability to bend his knees and slip, cover-up, and also counter-punch at close quarters make for a quality tussle inside. But I keep going round and circles and come back to Trinidad's power. Thats exactly where he might well punch the air right out of Curry.

One area where Curry would beat Trinidad is long range. His jab was used as a scoring weapon up the middle. Thats a punch Trinidad was extremely vulnerable to taking on a regular basis. But where Curry is also vulnerable himself is staying there for too long. His defense would need to be 'air tight' to really negate everything coming his way.

 

If Trinidad and De La Hoya were virtually even when it comes to power and durabilty, I'd take De La Hoya. He's got quicker hands, a better jab, and brings more of multi-dimensional game. His jab IMO is perhaps the best out of all three fighters in question. And he can box laterally and briefly off the backfoot as well. He has the option to fight a strictly long range fight and maybe get the better of things with Curry.

The big equalizer for Trinidad is his power.

 

In a pure boxing exhibition, Mark Breland stands an excellent chance to outbox Curry. Or Floyd Mayweather Jr.

 

I think Trinidad's best punch when both were, chest to chest, would be his uppercut. But it's not a punch Curry was vulverable to taking regularly. But it's better than wide hooks as Curry blocked well inside with both hands and mid-range. He pulled his head back and had the eyes of a hawk up close. Thats actually a punch I can see Trinidad landing though, as offensively he was superb at choosing his moments.

At long range Curry was good at parying jabs, then throwing his own. He pushed his opponents jab downwards.

Trinidad sometimes needed one moment to catch a fighter. And IMO Curry was too stationary too often. Curry wasn't a pure boxer behind the jab who showed lateral movement for sustained periods. He was a controlled, precise, steady, aggressive boxer/puncher.

 

If Curry stayed as welterweight champion up until around 89-90, then it's a high possibility that he'd be up there with Napoles and Leonard, etc. Lets assume he beat Honeyghan, Breland, and all the other top welterweights the division had to offer. That would make him champion for around 6 years and being undisputed for 4 of them. A very nice lengthy period of domination. It all depends of who he beat right enough. We all know that wasn't possible of course due to problems with the weight. Just food for thought.

I think skill wise and his well rounded game at his peak put him up there with Leonard and Naploes, excluding his brief prime of course.

 

Well, he's been one of my favs for quite sometime. He was shown a lot over here in the UK during the 80's. BBC and ITV when boxing was on terrestrial television rather than satellite. I can vaguely mind of him as a kid. I know my father liked watching him.

I watched his fight with Jones a few hours ago.

 

As mentioned before Griffith, Gavilan, and Rodriguez have the best chance I think I would favour Gavilan and Rodriquez while Griffith would be a 50/50.

 

I'd always like to add this about him. I prefer Curry to McCallum. Certainly for sitting down and viewing footage. And it's a shame he got KO'd by McCallum. I have watched the fight 2-3 times over the last couple of years. While he wasn't totally dominating McCallum, he was winning the fight and beating McCallum to the punch. That was one of the rare instances when he did use lateral movement to good effect behind the jab, in and out, then skipping back out of range to set-up his attacks.

And he almost dropped McCallum. A lovely right hand down the pipe that buckled McCallum's knees badly. If you watch the between round, replay, you'll realise what a hell of a punch it was. And if a punch followed up seconds later, McCallum was on his ass.

 

That shot was just one of those things.Probably wouldn't have been as decisive and early a win for MCCallum again had they fought another 20 times.

always thought it was ironic that Curry, who was usually so technically sound, got laid out after making one brief mistake, yet Mccallum couldn't put away herol graham who spent nearly the whole fight showboating and taunting McCallum to hit him with his hands by his waist; pulling his head straight back from exchange after exchange in the fashion Curry had done.

 

Agreed. He had that Louis, Arguello, Chavez, Lopez, etc, technique about him with a little bit of smoothness added in.

And lets not forget, that was a prime McCallum he was slightly getting the better of up until being caught. I think McCallum views it as one of his best wins. I'm sure I read that quote from him somewhere.