My take on Marlon Starling

I was a big fan of Starling. He was one of the top welterweights from about 1982 onward. He lost to a prime Curry but had a penchant for beating undefeated up and comers which kept him high in the ratings after the Curry losses. But, he had a couple of bad losses prior to winning the Championship. He was decisioned by Pedro Vilela who was not a very good fighter. Then, he lost a technical decision to a shot Johnny Bumpus. Bumpus was cut by a head butt and they were using an experimental system where the scores were announced after each round. Lou Duva thus knew Bumpus was ahead and lobbied for the fight to be stopped and it was, with Bumpus getting a Technical Decision. This was in mid 1986. At that point, Marlon was saddled with four losses and was close to being out of the top 10. He was forgotten. The media was hyping Honeyghan and Mark Breland and everyone thought those two would fight. Breland was very well guided and won the vacant WBA title, which had been stripped of Honeygan, by beating the mediocre Harold Volbrecht. Honeygan still held the IBF and WBC titles which he lost on a technical decision to Jorge Vaca, then ko'd Vaca to get the titles back. Vaca has to be one of the worst World Titlists ever, but I digress. Then, Starling caught a huge break. Breland was set to make his first defense against number one contender Tommy Ayers, but Ayres lost a non title fight to Rollin Williams. A replacement was needed to fight Breland and Starling got the shot. If he lost to Breland, that would have been it for his World title aspirations. I knew Starling was a very good challenger and had some tough breaks along the way. He was much better than his record indicated. I also knew Breland hadn't fought very tough completion up to this point. Starling had fought much better opposition. I had a feeling Starling could win. As the fight approached I looked forward to it with anticipation. It would be broadcast on ABC Wide World of Sports. I was 18, a month away from going away to College and my parents wanted to hava a quick trip to the Beach so we could all be together before I went off to College. It happened to coincide with the date of the Starling/Breland fight. We would be at a campground in a pop up trailer, and would not have a TV with us. I tried to talk them into going alone, but they wouldn't do it. So, I missed the fight. That night I tuned in my old AM/FM radio to any AM station I could find. At night near the beach, you could pick up stations from relatively far away. I listended intently for any information on the result of the Breland/Starling fight. Finally, a news reader came on and said something like "Marlon Starling upset the plans of undefeated Olympic champion Mark Breland.' I was elated. That title shot saved Marlon's career and he went on to beat Honeyghan and get a couple of big paydays like the Nunn fight. Then he quit at the right time, right after losing his WBC title in a close decision to Maurice Blocker. Gladly, he never became a steppingstone for young fighters to pad their records.

 

I think he could have beaten McCrory or Colin Jones. But I think if he challenged Curry in 83 he still loses. I think he was forced to fight Curry in 82 to get a chance at a title shot. I don't think he was going to get a shot at the WBC title but I may be wrong. That's the thing about Starling. He earned what he got. He was never a favorite of the World Sanctioning bodies.