Mike McCallum’s best fights

Curry would have problems with the eye, following his loss to Lloyd Honeyghan in Sept 1986.

 

I used to call it a fluke myself, honestly. I really liked Curry. However, that was a flaw that was readily apparent in several fights prior to McCallum. Not so much early on in his career that I recall.

 

He was getting punches in and yet Mike was stronger and taking over. And HBO acted like it was a fluke. The reason Donald was caught pulling out was because he changed tactics in round 5 to avoid Mike's strength on the inside and to protect the eye. But he backed up with his hands down because of something.

 

We have to remember that Jackson was a virtual unknown at the time Eddie. On paper at the time it looked like a walk in the park at that time. Jackson had not beaten anyone with a pulse. The win of course has gotten better with hindsight due to Jackson's post McCallum feats. We know he was dangerous and massive punching.

 

To be fair Jackson at that time hadn't beaten anyone remotely close to a legitimate top 10 contender.

With his chin McCallum would have beaten Jackson 10 out of 10 times, even when Jackson was prime later on at 160 lbs.

 

How did you personally score both of the Toney fights ?

 

This

 

Toney 1 and 2.
Curry
McCrory

 

Good point, Saad, as was @JohnThomas1 above. Hindsight's a wonderful thing although it does allow us, knowing how dangerous Jackson went on to be, to appreciate how calm McCallum was in the face of what we now know must have been a helluva storm.

What a time for middleweights the post Hagler era was. I must search for a thread to see how people reckon he would have fared running the gauntlet of McCallum, Jackson, Kalambay, Hopkins, RJJ, Toney, McClellan, Benn, Eubank, Graham, Watson, Nunn. Even Marvin should come unstuck eventually with that lot. I'll have a look and see what folk say.

 

Btw, the wide scores on one card in SRL-Hagler and Canelo-GGG has become legendary, but you don't hear anything about the crazy scores on two of the cards for McCallum-Toney II. They had it 118-110 and 117-110 in favour of Toney.

 

Curry fight was a fluke. Name another fight Mike scored a one punch ko?
Mike vs Sureo was an awsome display by Mike.
Took apart Nicky Walker like Walker was a novice.
Beautiful combinations vs Harding.

 

I think McCrory and Watson were his two best performances.

 

I always wondered what happened with Curry. Overconfidence maybe and then not enough mental strength to keep going at that high level. Guys like Hearns and Duran could be knocked out and continue, so you wonder why they could and Curry could not. Although, the McCallum fight was scheduled maybe a bit too soon after Honeyghan. Those head butt fights he had two of them didn't prove much. Montgomery and Santos I think? I think.

 

Sorry for the late response. I think I had them both around 7-5 or 8-4 for Toney, although it's been a while since I watched either one. The first fight I thought was pretty close before Toney took the last few rounds. The second fight I remember thinking that Toney was landing most of the quality shots, even if McCallum was landing more overall.

I think that the Herol Graham fight's been slept on a bit. On the one hand, Graham did make McCallum look bad with his speed at times. On the other, Graham was a tough opponent for anyone. In every one of his losses (which was only like six) he gave his eventual conqueror a really hard time. McCallum for the first time found himself facing a bigger, stronger fighter, but eventually they ended up fighting how McCallum wanted to fight, and he kind of took over late.