Donald Curry

147: Starling, Jones, La Rocca and McCrory were top flight competition - the best the division had to offer at the time.
154: Rossi, Aquino and Santos were very good scalps

losses to McCallum and Norris, two Hall of Famers

160: loss to Nunn, who arguably should be in the Hall of Fame.

Only the Jacquot loss was a bad stain on his record

Arturo Gatti is in the Hall of Fame? What was his best win? Tracy Harris Patterson, maybe. Gabe Ruelas, maybe

Ray Mancini is in the Hall of Fame. What is his best win? Probably pre championship Jose Luis Ramirez. Besides that, a lot of obscure highly rated guys.

Brian Mitchell? Tony Lopez by far his best victim, followed by badly faded names and obscure highly rated guys.

 

His competition at 147 was pretty solid. It came after such a great era of WWs in the late 70s/early 80s of Leonard, Hearns, Duran, Benitez, etc..that it can't help but pale in comparison, but it was pretty good.

Marlon Starling was a very good, if not especially consistent, fighter. The rematch was just an excellent display of boxing from both guys. Starling was good, Curry was just better.

Milton McCrory was a good fighter and Curry went through him like he was nothing.

 

Curry had very good competition, but he got better once he got to be champion. Timing worked in his favor a bit.

 

Nino La Rocca was 58-1 going into the DCurry fight. I heard Curry being interviewed on radio pre-fight, and he stated in a low keyed manner what he was going to do to La Rocca in Monaco, which he did by k.o.

 

Curry was sharp as a razor from Stafford to McCrory, a tad over 2 years. Starling was a superb win and Jones and McCrory were excellent as well. Even getting Stafford out of there like he did is a fine effort. He was sharp before getting caught by McCallum too.

 

Curry had a weird and pretty fast fall from grace. He was known to have weight problems at 147, rumored to be partaking too much in the night life and drugs (and being into dudes).

He looked completely different from the technically brilliant guy who outfought the excellent Marlon Starling in the rematch, or the guy who basically ended the Milton McCrory with one of the most beautiful, short counter left hooks you'll ever see.

Honeyghan did his job, but no doubt Curry just looked just bad. And although he had some mixed success afterwards, he could never regain that level of excellence.

During his short peak at WW, I think he was a great fighter and a competitive match for any WW ever.

 

Where did you hear that?

 

I think the rumor was well known in certain circles.

 

Lots of guys were rumoured to be gay back then, especially if they had an effeminate voice, or a non-stereotypically macho personality, or ridiculous hair. Curry, Hearns, Olajide, SRL...all had rumours about them. And I'm pretty sure all of them are hetero and have/had wives and kids.

 

I know Ray was supposedly molested at 19, but never heard anything about Hearns or Olajide.

 

The rumour has been very strong with Don, there's a lot of smoke there. Not that it matters.