Donald Curry

What? Exactly how good do you think Starling was? (You must have Pedro Vilella, Tomas Molinares and Johnny Bumphus REALLY high). Would you rate Starling higher than hall of Famers like Michael Spinks and Larry Holmes?

And did you actually compare Milton McCrory with Hall of Famer and all-time great Michael Spinks? Milton McCrory?

Milton McCrory and Maurice Blocker, yes. Milton McCrory and Michael Spinks, hell no.

When anyone Donald Curry beat makes it to the Hall of Fame, let me know.

 

Obviously Tyson is an iconic heavyweight and a massively famous personality. Don Curry was never famous in that sense and is forgotten by most who even knew about him.

But strictly on boxing accomplishments, they are rated around the same.

 

I don't know if accurate assessments of Curry and McCrory's record can be made.

One poster in this thread just compared McCrory to Michael Spinks.

McCrory may have road the coattails of Hearns more than Curry did of Leonard.

McCrory edged Colin Jones in a rematch. THAT'S IT.

The hype lingers to this day.

 

Michael Spinks had 4 fights as a heavyweight before Tyson.
How great was he in the HW division ?

 

Tyson was the undisputed heavyweight champion - beating FOUR champs to win those belts (Berbick, Smith, Tucker and Spinks), he beat two Hall of Famers (Holmes and Spinks), lost to a couple more (Holyfield and Lewis) in classic contests.

Curry beat Hwang and McCrory for his welterweight titles. He never defeated a Hall of Famer. And he only faced one - Terry Norris - who destroyed him.

Curry didn't even defend his belts as many times as Tyson. And most of Donald's defenses came against guys like Eduardo Rodriquez, Pablo Baez, Elio Diaz, and Roger Stafford, compared to Tyson's defenses against former/future champs like Pinklon Thomas, Tony Tubbs and Frank Bruno.

They don't compare in accomplishments at all. People don't even remember who Curry was.

Curry was a fine fighter. He was on the level of Simon Brown, Marlon Starling, Lloyd Honeghan, Maurice Blocker.

Curry wasn't on Mike Tyson's level. And Milton McCrory - in no way, shape of form - is an all-time great on the level of Michael Spinks.

That's simply ridiculous. Those guys were just welterweight champs. Nothing great.

It's not an insult to them. They just weren't.

 

I knew Donald Curry quite well while in Texas. Theres a story there you probably don't know about. Donald was to face Lloyd Honeyghan was training & then he caught the flu He was real sick couldn't train. By the time of the fight he was still very weak & undertrained Dons trainer Paul Reyes wanted to pull him out
so did Dave Gorman his manager. The promoter & so called manager I think his name was Muhammad insisted Don fought.
At weigh of course Don was overweight & had to sit in a sauna for ages to sweat weight off. It was just a shadow of the real Donald Curry that fought Honeyghan that night a 100% Curry would have beaten Lloyd easy
Another person that screwed Don was Ray Leonard, wont call him Suger he doesn't deserve it. Don wanted to move up & challenge Marvin Hagler . At the time Leonard was supposedly retired & Don's advisor. He pressured Don into waiting saying have a couple more fights first . Don listened. As we now Know Leonard was negociating behind Don's back to fight Hagler himself. He did & got handed a win he didn't deserve.
Don challenged Leonard but Leonard would never fight him.
Would Don have beaten Hagler had he not been denied ?? Would have been a very hard fight for Don but it would also have been a lucrative one. The continual struggle Don had making weight finally took its tole. I have a pic of him he signed for me wearing a crown Underneat are the words
DONALD THE LONE STAR COBRA CURRY THE KING OF BOXING!!!
Someone said Don's problem was drugs? I remember someone said that before & Dave Gorman laughed & said Don drugs???? Damn we had to force him to take a couple of asprin if he had a headache

 

The fact that they were a dozen "former champions" floating around when Tyson came along was seen as an indication that something was wrong with the division.
It wasn't a good thing.

I'm not going to argue that Curry was better than Tyson, or say that he ranks ahead of Tyson ... but anyone who says Tyson's accomplishments put him in another league, pound for pound, is going to have to use some very biased methods to make that case.

Both were undisputed champs. Both had a decent run of wins. Both were over-hyped in their undefeated primes. Both lost badly to a huge underdog. Both never really came back to where they were before the loss.

 

No one ranks Michael Spinks as a great HEAVYWEIGHT.
He won a close decision against Holmes, and was given another one that he really didn't deserve.
Stop pretending that beating Spinks puts Tyson in another league, pound for pound.
It doesn't.

Both Curry and Tyson would be damned lucky to get into the top 100 fighters all time, if we're honest, but they might come quite close.

And that's not an insult either. :good

 

If you asked Donald he'd probably tell you that he wasn't the most talented Curry brother. He said Graylin Curry was by far the most talented. The story around Texas was Graylin never lost a single fight as an amateur but when it came to the pros he just didn't have desire & showed no interest let his career just fizzle out.
Another thing Don said was that he really wasn't that interested in boxing he wanted to play baseball. Don said that boxing came easy to him he just kept winning. He turned pro with the idea of earning enough $$$ to put him through college, play baseball & hopefully get into the major league
Had many chats with Don he was a real friendly laid back guy

 

Great posts. Very interesting, great insights. :good

Yeah, Ray Leonard was pretty good at manipulating other fighters to play things in his favour, and admits it.

 

Holmes and Spinks are hall of famers, but Tyson's wins over them should be looked at in context. Holmes was a 38 yr old well past his prime and Spinks lost to Holmes (well not technically). Spinks is a hall of fame light heavyweight. Context, context, context:yep

 

Thanks :good

 

Oh please. "Had he not been denied?" These are very old stories.

Who "denied" Curry the Hagler fight? If Hagler offered him a fight, who turned it down?

Donald Curry turned it down.

Donald Curry DENIED himself a terrible beating at the hands of Marvin Hagler.

Curry was two divisions below Hagler. Curry had trouble making weight as far back as the FIRST Marlon Starling fight, before he even won a welterweight title. But CURRY chose to remain a welterweight.

If Curry couldn't make weight, he should've moved up to junior middleweight or middleweight. But CURRY DECIDED to keep cutting weight.

When Curry DID move up even a couple pounds, he wasn't as good as he was as a welter.

Truth is, Donald Curry was just another welterweight champ.

Simon Brown held the welterweight title for as long. Simon Brown unified against Blocker. Simon Brown actually moved up to junior middleweight and knocked out Hall of Famer Terry Norris (who Curry couldn't beat) for the title. And Simon Brown moved up and fought Bernard Hopkins for the middleweight title.

Brown accomplished as much as Curry, and nobody's comparing Brown to Tyson and Spinks.

Hell, at this point, Keith Thurman's beaten as good, if not better, welterweights than Curry did. (Certainly better welters than McCrory beat.)

If Keith Thurman knocked out Andre Berto this year, are you guys going to start putting him on the level of Tyson and Spinks, too?

Curry rode Leonard's coattails for so long, when Leonard beat Hagler, Curry actually believed he would've beaten Hagler, too.

But Curry never beat Duran or Hearns or Hagler or Benitez or any mega-stars. He beat Milton McCrory. And he lost to guys like Rene Jacquot and Lloyd Honeyghan.

You don't get to be a superstar because people "want" you to be. You don't do it by suing people in court. You actually have to do it in the ring.

If he thought he could beat Hagler, he should've fought him. But no one really thought he could win, not even Curry, that's why he turned it down.

 

Well I'd say you can't be a lot fairer than that.

 

I won't make any certain statements about it, but that a prime Starling was a better WW than an inactive Spinks was a HW or a 38-year old inactive Holmes was, seems like a reasonable assessment to me.

As for McCrory, I didn't mean an exact comparison with Tyson's win over Spinks, just that both were impressive demolition jobs over a credible opponent and in hindsight seen as peak performances.
But when you mention it, I don't think it's far fetched to say that prime McCrory was as good at his best weight as a faded, inactive Spinks was at HW when he faced Tyson.

Of course, Spinks ranks way, way, way higher p4p seen over his career, but I don't think he was a great HW in 1988.