Donald Curry, "Hall of Fame" worthy? Yes or No.

McGuigan won his title by toppling a record-setting HOF champ, while Mitchell had a lengthier run at the top and didn't have the same kind of embarrassing losses in or around his peak. While I agree that both are certainly questionable inductions, I don't agree that Curry was any "better" or would be a "less unworthy" induction.

 

I like Mitchell, but it's hard to suffer embarassing losses when you fight mediocre to average fighters almost every time out.Kind of takes the impact away from always fighting in the other guys backyard too.

That one stunk of let's have a token African induction so they go for the guy with the safe statistics on paper.

Just saying though, i don't really agree with the "he's in so my guy should be in on principle" line of thinking.

 

I don't think Curry's resume was all that much better, though. Both guys won their initial titles against a fairly mediocre opponent, but at least Alfredo Layne was coming off a big win over Wilfredo Gomez, whereas Hwang was basically a nobody outside of Korea. Guys like LaRocca and Elio Diaz got a lot of hype because of their big padded records, but I don't think they were necessarily better than some contenders Mitchell beat like Jim McDonnell or Irving Mitchell. And I'd say Tony Lopez was at least marginally better than Starling and distinctly better than McCrory.

 

I was buying this until the Lopez/Starling analogy. I think Starling was a notch up from Lopez. Lopez fought the majority of his tough fights in Sacramento and got several questionable decisions. Check out the first fight against Lockridge. Lockridge blasted him to the canvas in the 8th round (I believe). Gil Clancy said "lets see how much time he gets". He got 16 seconds. Lopez slightly better than McCrory is ok by me, but not Starling. As for Mitchell vs Curry. Curry x2 over Starling and his obliteration of McCrory beats anything Mitchell did IMO. Mitchell had some long fights, Curry was blowing guys away. I think Mitchell was really good but not seriously tested at the highest levels.

 

SS, which robberies are you referring to? Do you think Starling was robbed against Curry?

 

Yeah, I felt Curry beat Starling both times, maybe the first fight was closer. I don't hold the Molinares fight against Starling, although that certainly could be called a robbery, and yeah, I thought he edged that Breland fight too. So maybe those are the robberies SS is referring to.

 

I don't think the Curry fights are robberies nat, though I do have them closer than most:


Donald Curry vs. Marlon Starling I: 115-115 Draw
Starling: 1,3,5,6 and 9.
Curry: 4,7,8,10 and 12.
Rounds 2 and 11 even.

Donald Curry vs. Marlon Starling II: 144-143 Curry
Starling: 1,4,5,6,11 and 13
Curry: 2,7,8,9,10,14 and 15.
Rounds 3 and 12 even.


However I do think that he got the rough end of the stick in the second Breland and the Blocker fights.

My cards for those:

Marlon Starling vs. Mark Breland II: 115-113 Starling
Breland: 8, 9,10,11 and 12.
Starling: 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7.

Marlon Starling vs. Maurice Blocker: 116-113 Starling
Blocker: 2,3,7 and 8.
Starling: 1,4,5,6,10,11 and 12.
Round 9 even.


I also think he was unfortunate to lose to Bumphus when it seemed he was coming on and the Michael Nunn fight did more for Starling's standing than it did for Nunn's, even though Nunn might have edged a fight neither really deserved to win.

Haven't seen the Viella fight, but from the description of it, it sounds like just the kind of fight I'd probably think Starling won (Viella kept his distance and then flurried in the last moments to steal rounds even though most of the flurries were ineffective).

Starling was right there with pretty much every fighter he ever faced. He was never blown out the way Curry was several times and he compiled a fairly good resume himself (Simon Brown, Mark Breland, Lloyd Honeyghan etc. )

 

Hwang at least was a big puncher with a rock jaw, check out his fight with Cuevas for some scary punch resistance(yeah i know Cuevas was washed up, but it was still impressive)if not actually that good.Layne didn't really have any notable abilities that i remember.

Lopez i was never a fan of, decently schooled hard worker with no real particular talents.To be honest i'd take McCrory over him by a couple notches simply on physical ability and Starling by a mile if he's near his best, though Starling admittedly could potentially be outworked by anyone with a pulse.

McDonell was a notch better than Larocca etc though i'd say.

Curry doesn't really have too much depth in his win column either, but we're talking losses here and his came against better fighters than Mitchell ever stepped in with.

 

Starling was **** against Viella, though it was still another 50/50 type fight definitely.


I agree there's a case Starling eventually pulled at least equal with Curry.I guess it's what you prefer, the shorter arguably more spectacular high profile peak, or Starling's tougher nature and never really being outclassed while seemingly often having more than he was willing to show.I'm surprised there isn't more of a Eubank or Benn type debate around the two; i guess Curry getting so much hype at one point and then falling short has stopped the focus being on the two men's rivalry.

 

Stafford was the 80s Oba Carr stylistically.Didn't get as many big fights though, as you would expect after that.