The Case for Donald Curry

I have been so gratified by the reaction to the post when I wrote about Santos Laciar and the case for putting Laciar into the Hall of Fame that I asked if anyone would want to read about the other boxer that I push for induction every year.
One of our Twitter followers had suggested that he'd like to read (he tweeted about Laciar and that led to the post on the Argentine star) about Donald Curry and I decided to make "The Lone Star Cobra's" case as well in a hybrid with a Forgotten Superstars post.

Donald Curry fought ten world champions, defeating five in a deceiving statistic with losses coming late in his career (two in his final four fights) against fighters naturally larger than him (Michael Nunn) and ranging from Hall of Famers (Mike McCallum) to exciting young champions at their peak (Terry Norris).

Donald Curry always seemed to just miss on his timing in boxing.
Curry was a member of the 1980 Olympic team, which was placed not only in between the two most successful boxing teams in American Olympic history but due to President Carter's imposed boycott was not allowed to compete at all.
Five members of the lost Olympic team would win world championships- Leroy Murphy (IBF Cruiser), Johnny Bumphus (WBA Jr.Welter), Joe Manley (IBF Jr. Welter), Richie Sandoval (WBA Bantam) along with Curry and some if not all of the above would have been much richer and well-known stars entering the pro game simply by the exposure that came with the Olympics at the time far larger than today and even bigger had they won medals in Moscow.

That would make a huge difference for Curry, who with a gold medal would have been fighting on network television as a household name, instead was fighting on a network in its infancy named ESPN and their contracted provider-Top Rank.
Top Rank's movement of Curry was a bit quicker than many prospects were moved at the time and Curry's first major win was a fourth-round KO of Bruce Finch, who had been stopped a few months earlier in the third by Sugar Ray Leonard (Leonard's victory over Finch would be the only unified title defense of his career), which placed in him in the top ten just a year and a half into his career.
Curry decisioned one-time contender Adolfo Viruet before a crossroads fight against one of the other two top welterweight prospects (Milton McCrory being the other) in Marlon "the Magic Man" Starling.
Curry wasn't overly impressive in winning a split decision, but after the fight, Curry announced he fought with bruised ribs and had major difficulties making weight,

With Ray Leonard's retirement, the two titles were vacated and each sanctioning body (WBA and WBC at the time) decided to fill the titles with separate fights.
That is yet another thing that boxing hasn't changed through the years as so much work, promotion and buildup go into unifying titles and as soon as they can break them up-they do so.
Curry and McCrory were thought of like the 1 and 1A contenders in the division and instead of a Curry-McCrory bout for the vacant title, which is what most fans would have been pleased with, each organization would use one of the two as McCrory would face Colin Jones of Wales for the WBC title and Curry's challenger would be unknown Jun-Sok Hwang of South Korea.
McCrory would fight to a draw with Jones and win a narrow split decision in their rematch, while Curry dominated Hwang in the first ever world title fight televised on ESPN, with the only blemish being a flash knockdown in the seventh on a wild Hwang right (try saying that three times quickly).

Curry quickly defended his title five times in his first two years with the first against Roger Stafford, who was the fighter scheduled to have the next title shot against Ray Leonard when Leonard announced his retirement, had pulled arguably the first major upset televised by ESPN when he decisioned Pipino Cuevas (remember Cuevas from a long-ago Forgotten Superstars?) and had gone the 10 round distance against WBC champion McCrory in a WBC eliminator.
Stafford was through in 102 seconds against the Lone Star Cobra.
Next was a rematch with Marlon Starling for not only Curry's title but the vacant title of the newly created IBF.
Many in the boxing media thought Starling, who had won six straight since his split decision loss to Curry in which he spent as much time clowning around as he did punching, was going to avenge that loss, but in arguably, Curry's finest performance to date, Curry won a clearcut unanimous decision.
Curry stopped unheralded Elio Diaz in seven before traveling to Monaco to defend against the flashy and flamboyant Nino LaRocca.
LaRocca had appeared several times on American television and Curry-LaRocca was an anticipated bout with again LaRocca being a live underdog with many picking the Italian to win on his home (or next door anyway) turf.
It wasn't close as Curry won every round before stopping LaRocca in six.

Colin Jones of Wales was looked at as a stern test after his two fights with Milton McCrory, but Curry ripped a bad cut over the right eye of Jones and the fight was stopped in the fourth.

It was the win over Colin Jones that changed the narrative on Donald Curry from who would win in a welterweight title unification against Milton McCrory to how would Curry fare at higher weights against names such as Hagler and Hearns?
Curry took a few steps to gauge the winds at junior middleweight with non-title fights against fringe contenders James "Hard Rock" Green and Pablo Baez, stopping both in two and six rounds respectively as he attempted to gain the unification bout against McCrory and do so while not fighting the scale at welterweight, which was already becoming a chore.

The McCrory fight was finally landed in December of 1985 and the classic knockout in the second round has been replayed many times with Curry avoiding a jab and dropping McCrory with a left hook that should have finished the fight, but a game McCrory rose only to be knocked out with a Curry right hand.



With such a dominant win, all three championships in hand and making the weight limit becoming more and more of a challenge, this would seem to be the perfect time to move up in weight, but instead Curry stayed with the titles at 147 with a homecoming fight in Texas that saw Curry knock out Eduardo Rodriguez in two rounds.
You would think that after a gift to the home fans, one would think Curry would now leave the division.
But as trainer/manager Dave Gorman battled behind the scenes with new manager Akbar Muhammad for control of Curry's career, Curry was reported to be 20 pounds overweight six weeks before his fight with undefeated, but little known top contender Lloyd Honeyghan of Britain.
Little did we know that we had seen the best of Donald Curry that he had to offer as the brash Honeyghan battled Curry on even terms for six rounds and seemed to be the surging fighter against an almost gaunt champion when an accidental headbutt badly cut Curry in the sixth round.
Curry surrendered the title on his stool and the one thing that I am struck by to this day- If the referee called the headbutt an accidental one, the correct call would have been to go to the scorecards.
Honeyghan was slightly ahead on the scorecards, so the winner would not have been changed, but I have wondered, would Curry have gone out and tried to fight on under those conditions?

Boxing observers still thought the result was a fluke that the managerial issues, the headbutting from Honeyghan and the weakened state from making weight all added up to a perfect ending to defeat Curry.
Curry moved to 154 pounds and notched one of the more surprising statistics in boxing, back to back disqualification wins in the fifth round as Tony Montgomery and former IBF champion Carlos Santos attempted to emulate the bullying tactics of Honeyghan and ended with the same bizarre result- being disqualified for deliberate headbutting

Still, Curry was a mild favorite against boxing's most avoided fighter (and future Hall of Famer) "The Body Snatcher" Mike McCallum for McCallum's WBA junior middleweight title.
McCallum (Or "McCullum" as Ray Leonard constantly called him in a very annoying way during the Curry fight) spent his career being dodged by the great fighters of the 80's- Leonard (retired)  Thomas Hearns (the Same trainer in Emanuel Steward, McCallum left Steward to try to land a Hearns fight that never happened), Roberto Duran ( Duran vacated the WBA title rather than face McCallum as his mandatory) and Marvin Hagler, so this was a coming out party for McCallum as well as Curry's possible return to the top of the game.
After four rounds that are as good as you'll see for technical boxing ability, Curry backed up a step and dropped his hands, a technique flaw that had never haunted him at welterweight, McCallum threw another highlight left hook often shown through the years that knocked Curry down and out in the fifth round.
Donald Curry had been suing HBO commentator Ray Leonard and his manager Mike Trainor for giving "Bad Business Advice" when Curry asked them for counsel on a potential Marvin Hagler fight after the McCrory fight and their advice was to stay at welterweight.
Curry sued when he turned down the Hagler fight (Leonard would sign for his own Hagler fight shortly afterward) and when McCallum's hook knocked out Curry, the glee in Leonard's voice at ringside is quite apparent.


Curry was never the same after that, even when three fights later he would win the WBC version of the title with a unanimous decision over Italy's Gianfranco Rosi before a shocking loss in his first defense to unheralded French journeyman Rene Jacquot.
Curry had become a four to eight round fighter, where he would look like the old Curry for the first half of the fight before deteriorating quickly in the second half.
Curry tired easily, it showed visibly as fights progressed and his punch resistance dipped accordingly as well.

The Cobra was offered (after two squash wins) a shot at the best middleweight in the world in IBF champion Michael Nunn in France in 1990 and the script was the same.
Curry having early success before fading midway through and with his legs shot took a pounding for three rounds before being stopped in the tenth.
Eight months later, Curry dropped back to junior middleweight for another title shot against the best that division had to offer in Terry Norris and for seven give and take rounds gave Norris all he could handle in a fight that is often forgotten for how good it actually was, Norris ended Curry's career (other than an ill-fated two-fight comeback in 1997) in the eighth round.


Curry would finish his career at 34-6 with 25 knockouts.
I have to be honest- the case for Curry is really based on your idea of what a Hall of Fame inductee should be.
Would you rather have a very good fighter that fights at that level for a long time or a fighter like Curry that cleaned out a division, but for a short period of time of great performance?
Think of it like comparing Hall of Fame pitchers Don Sutton (Very good, but not great for a long period of time) against Sandy Koufax (Tremendous, but for a far shorter period of time).

I'm not against either, but if you were truly great but comet-like and flawed, I'm in your corner.
Donald Curry deserves enshrinement in Boxing's Hall.