...aka "the American Maxim Golovkin". Why did he fizzle out? Is there any known footage of the middle child (and purportedly most talented boxer) of the Curry tribe? Amateur (where he was 390-15) or pro? He fought a couple of notables in his brief and unflattering (compared with Bruce or Donald's) 13-6 run dabbling in the professional game. Namely he was kayoed by Luis Santana - the Dominican that went on to "best" Terry Norris in a trilogy in the 90's with a pair of wonky disqualification "wins" followed by getting KTFO in the denouement - and Willie "The Body Rock" Monroe (father of "The Mongoose" who challenged Golovkin, and nephew of "The Worm" that went 2-1 in a trilogy with Hagler)
Nobody ain't got nothing? Well shucks, there goes any chance of anybody having an informed opinion when voting in my hypothetical alternate-dimension-cum-time-capsule match-up thread on Graylin Curry vs. Maxim Golovkin for recognition of middleweight GOAT status.
I have a magazine from back then with his photo in it, but I never saw him fight. I don't know where you got the idea he was "the best" of the brothers. As you pointed out, he was a pretty much a journeyman pro. As far as I know, he was never a top national amateur boxer. Donald Curry made the 1980 Olympic team. Bruce Curry lost to Sugar Ray Leonard in the finals to make the 1976 Olympic team. I don't recall Graylin Curry making any Olympic teams or even coming close to qualifying for one. SoI don't know how he could be qualified as better than they were. A lot of boxers have brothers who fought. If he was the BEST of the Curry brothers - two of whom were world champs - I'm sure he'd have actually BEEN BETTER than they were. Right? I'm going to go out on a limb and say Graylin Curry was NOT the best of the Curry brothers.
He was inactive for long stretches. I think he was a prospect around '81 but stopped fighting for some reason - jail maybe? I saw him on USA Tuesday Night fights around '92. (Against Kevin Pompey, I just looked it up.} He was clubfighter material at that point.
Uh, well, as one might glean from either following this sport or just existing on the planet for any measure of time, sometimes things happen simply because: reasons. Circumstances don't always work out for whatever reason and the most talented people aren't guaranteed to achieve success. That's kind of the whole point here, why Graylin is such a curiosity. If he was just somebody that happened to be a blood relative of Bruce and Donald who chalked up as mediocre a record as he did, he would just be a footnote in the lore and not worth looking into. What makes him of specific interest to myself and others is the reputation he is said to have once had, based on contemporary perceptions being that Graylin had the most potential in the family. Similar to Maxim Golovkin, the mythicized brother of Gennady whom on paper we could just as easily by your logic dismiss as definitely NOT the best of the Golovkin brothers. (when even Gennady says that he absolutely, zero-doubts-about-it was) Donald himself is one source calling Graylin better. So have several other publications. It even gets referenced in Graylin's bio write-up on his BoxRec page. The entire point is that he didn't fulfill that potential (whatever it may have been), that is the intrigue. The question then is why, due to what confluence of circumstances did the alleged best Curry brother end up with by far the worst record when all is said and done. A simple Google would have spared you questioning where I "got the idea" he was called the best. He was. I'm not sure why it was easier for you to assume I fabricated that fact than just to look it up (or accept that it may have been true despite the surface evidence of him faring much poorer than Bruce or Donald in the pros...sometimes things in life are counterintuitive and complicated. )
ive also heard maxim was the most talented brother, but was unable to succeed b/c the kazahkstan gov't wanted to support a more european looking star rather than the more asian looking brother (improbable because kazahkstan takes pride in its asian ethnocentricity). what is more likely is that gennady was the most talented out of the surviving brothers and therefore succeeded. but here we must define talent. in the pro boxing world talent results in wins over credible opponents. it does not mean who can hit harder in the first 30 seconds of a fight or who is the fastest in the early rounds. talent can also degrade rapidly without proper training. perhaps graylin and maxim were indeed the more talented fighters, but didnt have the mental or physical endurance to be successful. maybe they were lazy and allergic to training. but as the brother of a standout olympian and a man who made it to the finals of the trials i doubt graylin was limited in oppurtunities. just my guess.
Whose contemporary perceptions? I followed boxing since 1975. I'm a contemporary. I had no perceptions of Graylin Curry being better than his brothers. And his bio on Boxrec cites NO SOURCES. Someone typed a bio and posted it. That's all. There is no attribution for his record or articles showing he won tournaments. There are a lot of amateur boxing sites. Here's one, for example, that lists the participants in tournaments going back to 1894. http://amateur-boxing.strefa.pl./ Names are sometimes misspelled, so it's difficult to do a search. But there are a lot of tournaments in there. I tried to find Graylin Curry in here, based on the tournaments he supposedly competed in on his BOXREC BIO. I don't see him anywhere. Maybe you can find him. I tried to find something that supports his supposed amateur record (that's a lot of wins for someone who didn't seem to win much of anything tournament wise). Can't find any support except for "what people heard". Just because someone who is successful says MY BROTHER HAD MORE POTENTIAL THAN ME doesn't mean anything. It's like a back-handed compliment. Graylin Curry competed at the same time his brothers did. They seemed to excel, he didn't. They were in the Olympic picture, he wasn't. They were top rated contenders, he wasn't. They fought for and won world titles, he didn't. Golovkin's brother, who you brought up, didn't compete in all the same tourneys as Gennady and lose. He didn't try out for the Olympics and lose. He didn't turn pro and become a journeyman. If he had, I doubt Gennady's opinion of him would hold much water. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Graylin was the most talented Curry brother like Jeff Mayweather is the most talented Mayweather.
Let's put it this way, if his record was "really" 390 and 15, he'd have basically won EVERY tournament he entered for years (and that's a lot of tournaments), or, if he hadn't won, at least gone really deep (like into the finals). It's difficult to legitimately rack up 390 wins in an era when amateur boxing in the U.S. was thriving and there be basically little to no documentation on that.
I pulled out the magazine I had with Graylin Curry's photo in it (since there doesn't seem to be one online). Here's his photo and the brief mention of him on the next page. https://i.imgur.com/Qv6y9v8.jpg https://i.imgur.com/miRK16W.jpg
Okay well then why in your opinion is there a conspiracy to promote the idea that he was better? Doesn't that seem like a kind of random expenditure of someone's time and energy (involving at least one Boxrec editor plus whoever attributed the quote to Curry, if you suspect that of being fake as well)? Making up big fish tales about the untold prowess of the obscure brother of a long retired ATG? Occam's razor says that nobody wasted that much effort on trolling bored hapless boxing historians. So there were at least rumors, presumably, of him being pretty good, much better than what his record shows, and the question then is what is the story there? Why didn't he live up to any of that? Or if he never was that good, why did people start believing so? (ie did he avenge one of Donald's amateur defeats in a styles make fights type of triangle scenario?)
I think Double Chin is confused International Butt never said Graylin was "the best" Curry brother He simply said he was "purportedly the most talented." Of course, this can never really be proved or disproved.
Exactly, that is the heart of the mystery. "Why did that even become something that was said?" Where there's smoke there's either fire, or... some other explanation for smoke.