Both John H Stracey and Lloyd Honeyghan,two Brits, went over the water and beat two very highly rated world welterweight champions in massive upsets. Jose had already achieved legendary status (especially among Mexicans) and Don was regarded as the eventual successor to Marvelous Marvin Hagler as the world's P4P best fighter. We all know at the time of the bouts,that Honeyghan's win was the bigger upset at the bookies but now that the dust has settled over the years,which fight was the greater achievement? Hard one to call,is n't it?
It's a tough one Stevie, I'm gonna go With the Ragamuffin mans win over Curry. It's fresh even now in my mind, the way he went over such an under dog then dismantled Don. Very shocking at the time as we know, mate.
Honeyghan for me. I know there's the weight issue with Curry going into that fight but he was absolute prime, regarded by many as the pfp best in boxing, certainly in the boxing mags than ran pfp ratings at this time (i.e. KO), coming off the trouncing of McCrory, whereas Jose was on the way down since the Monzon battering and then the Muniz controversy when he'd been battered for much of the fight. Great achievement by Johnny, but Lloyd's has to rank higher.
HONEYGHAN'S WIN. Mickey Duff watched Napoles struggle with Muniz and phoned Terry Lawless Stracey's manager to say Napoles is ready to be taken,"the next good man who fights him will beat him". Curry on the other hand was perceived as being still prime.
I tend to go along with the consensus here. Stracey's win was magnificent but Honeyghan's even more so. I met John H a couple of days ago. A really nice down to Earth bloke with some interesting stories to tell.
w/ the benefit of hindsight, I'm going to go against the grain & suggest that Stracey's was really the bigger/better win given that Napoles was a bona fide ATG, whereas Curry was a fighter that appeared on the cusp of true greatness, but never fully crossed that threshold IMO.
Whilst Napoles is a far greater fighter than Curry, I voted Honeyghan, because Curry was prime (albeit probably struggling at the weight), whereas Napoles was shot by the time of the Stracey, his final, fight.
Agree, and Ragamuffin ragdolled Curry. It was an overwhelming victory over a prime (if probably weight-drained) top-tier P4P guy at the time. So I’ve got to go with the Honey man.
Hate to nitpick, Steve, because you a terrific poster and one of my favorites. But Jose wasn't American as he was born in Cuba and fought out of Mexico. I will stfu now lol.
Thank you for the compliment,Clinton. And also for pointing out my error on Jose's nationality. Silly typo from me as I've known for years that he was Cuban born and moved to Mexico. I like your posts too.
Love Honeyghan and Stracey but Lloyd has to be the pick here, due to the reasons presented by previous posters
Napoles was 35 when he lost with a lot of mileage while Curry was in his prime and considered the P4P best fighter on the world at the time of the Honeygan fight ... interesting question but nt very close to me.
Mickey was very big on the timing of fights. An underrated skill of managers and boxing smarts is a requirement to successfully pull that off for a stable of fighters. And that is for a stable & not 1 or 2 guys to manage, but a stable of fighters.
