Primes: Who wins? Well Honeyghan was tough but was a brawler and made for a slickster like Curry who destroyed the "Hearns-Like" McCrory in just two rounds. What happens here?
Curry was CLEARLY off against Honeyghan, just as Tyson was clearly off against Douglas. The difference is, everybody can recognize and ACCEPT that Tyson was off against Douglas, yet Curry haters like you wanna paint the picture of him being at his best against Honeyghan, when the eyes clearly say otherwise. There's no way to know for sure, but I SUSPECT a 100% Curry would have defeated Honeyghan. Just as I SUSPECT a 100% Tyson would have defeated Douglas. And you're really grasping for straws with that McCrory statement. Who here has EVER compared McCrory to Hearns?? They was a natural comparison when Milt was coming up, due to the fact they were both Kronk products, but it was always apparent that Hearns was more talented than McCrory by a wide margin. And for the record, Hearns would have knocked out any version of Curry.
Watching the fight now... To my eyes at least, Curry looks WEIGHT-DRAINED...And his performance is listless. Looked sluggish the moment the first bell rang all the way to the end. I think Curry a year prior to this was a different fighter. Not saying Honeyghan wasn't tough. And his style would be the type to present problems to Curry sorta like that Asian guy Curry fought against years prior. However, I'm inclined to think that Curry at his best is just a higher caliber fighter than Honeyghan and would have won a decision clear as day. Just my two cents.
Quote from a guy commenting on the youtube video of this fight: "Honeyghan was so unfancied for this fight that it wasn't even live on the radio in The UK. He rapidly proved himself to be nothing special and ending up on his knees in front of Marlon Starling after all the aggressive chit-chat didn't win him any more fans. So, was Don Curry just massively overrated from the start, did he he just have a bad night or was Lloyd Honeyghan, for one night only, pound-for-pound the best boxer on the planet?" Good question IMO.
Anyway, when I look at that fight, Curry looked the same to me out of the gate...looked like honeyghan just beat the fight out of him....whereas in Tyson Douglas Tyson was different from the opening bell.
Curry looked off in that fight from the beginning. He looked flat and overtrained. Honeyghan might have a given the best Curry a good fight but he definitely got Curry at the right time. As far as the comment from the Brit about Honeyghan being nothing special it's a bit revisionist. He looked good against Bumphus, Hatcher, Blocker and Vaca. Going into the Starling fight a lot of folks thought Starling was damaged goods after the whole Molinares debacle. He schooled Honeyghan and beat the fight out of him that night.
Once Honeyghan reached into curry's comfort zone and hurt him with long right hands it turned Curry into a different fighter. All of a sudden he couldn't pose and jab and decide when and how he wanted to attack and get inside. When he had to think and fight at all times he just didn't have the mental power to keep it together. Then he quit... You saw flashes of this against the Korean guy he won the belt against. The guy was slow, scrubby, short and squat; but he was brave and wouldn't allow Curry to stop fighting. It says a lot that a guy that average could give Curry such a rough fight by making him fight. He tried to maul McCallum and got ktfo throwing a sloppy hook because unlike Marlon Starling McCallum could punch, and the simple fact of it spooked Curry into fighting sloppy and stupid.
It just isn't fair to give Curry the "benefit of the doubt" when so many other fighters have been in his position and not totally nosedived like he did. After hearing about this guy for years I wasn't disappointed to finally look him up because he was really good but I could immediately tell their was some "legend" about him because his style didn't match at all with his internet description. He wasn't the classy jack of all trades he's made out to be. According to the internet Curry was a less slick Ray Leonard with power. According to YouTube he's Diego Corrales with legitimate boxing skills. I've seen places where Curry is unanimously favored over Felix Trinidad, not by early round stoppage which would be his only chance, but by out boxing and outclassing him. This is fucking hilarious. Why would you pick a guy that quit in the only fight where he was losing and got KTFO by a single left hook against, of all people, Felix Trinidad.
Honeyghan seems a little under rated. I guess he was a big trashy talker and people were happy to see him fall. Not a great fighter but a decent one. I wouldn't rate him below any the current welter at this point in there careers.
I wouldn't either. But Thurman, Garcia, Brook, and Porter are crap in a historical sense. Not sure I'd pick any of those guys over Oba Carr, let alone Honeyghan. Prime Curry would also clean house at 147 today. He'd knock out Thurman, Garcia, Porter, and Brook.
Thurman would be a dangerous fight for Curry because of his reckless long range bombing. That's the exact thing to fluster Curry if he can land. Thurmans also actually a pretty good runner if he decided he needed to stay away. I think he'd be too short to potshot and too vulnerable on the inside though.
I'm one of the few Thurman fans on this forum, and even I think that's ridiculous. Curry would have DESTROYED Thurman. I don't have much faith in Thurman's chin, and we know his defense is dodgy. Can't see Thurman lasting more than 5-6 rounds before being stopped.
Thurman is good. He's exciting. But Curry is in a different class when it comes to skill and talent. He'd ice him.
McCrory was too fragile and lethargic. Colin Jones would've been a bleeding target for Thurman to jog around and drop bombs on.
Curry's skills and talent can be neutralized by a hard punch to head. That's the story of his career. Curry is like a beautiful coat that keeps you warm in the coldest weather but falls apart if it gets wet. You can appreciate what he's good for but his shortcomings are serious fundamental flaws for a fighter.
McCrory wasn't fragile. He took a HORRIFIC beating from McCallum before being stopped in the 10th. Jones was crude, but had a good chin, and could have turned Thurman's lights out at any point. You're making Thurman into this Trinidad-like killer and he's not.
Looking back the quote about Curry being a coat that keeps you warm came out wrong. Better analogy on the way!
Your praise of Thurman is gonna look pretty bad if shitty Porter beats him. I don't think he will, but just saying...
I don't rate mcCrory or Jones. Thurman is an athletic guy that likes to get running starts at leaping power punches that do damage when they land and that's a challenge for Curry as Honeyghan made so obvious. If Thurman lands a bomb then Curry is liable to freak out every time Thurman starts stutter stepping and threatening to throw another javelin and it's a different fight.
I'm not even praising him I'm just saying he's got a good shot to beat a chinny guy that quits in tough fights. The only difference between Thurman and Curry at this point is that Thurman hasn't beat a Starling level fighter or got beat up and quit in his corner. And Porter has a good shot since Thurman doesn't seem to fight inside. I expect him to outbox and outbomb porter tho.
Take starling off his resume and his resume isn't much better than Thurmans. The point is lots of fighters are highly regarded and undefeated and then they lose and are reassessed. Curry did, but some people have frozen him in his hyped up stage. Usually when past fighters are favored over present fighters you can reason that the past fighter is more known and proven but Curry had his run and flamed out in his physical prime.
Curry was more dominant in his brief prime than Thurman, and was fighting much higher quality fighters. Even a guy like Nino Larocca is better than anybody Thurman's beaten. To say there's no difference between them is to say they have comparable talent, which they don't. Curry had P4P talent, Thurman has "good fighter" talent. I tend to look more favorably at guys who were special for a SHORT period of time over guys who were merely GOOD for awhile. That's the difference between a Mel Taylor and a Virgil Hill. A special fighter with a short prime versus a good fighter with a long prime. Do I agree with you that Curry lacked the intangibles that guys like Leonard, Hearns, and Robinson had? Yes, I agree. But even with that, on skill/talent alone he was capable of beating a lot of top welters throughout history. On the night he beat McCrory, Keith Thurman has zero chance of beating him.
Curry wasn't in a car accident. He wasn't ruined in a tough fight. His "prime" was when he got beat up and knocked out. That's my point. Curry wasn't a great fighter that had a great run and father time caught up with him. He got beat up in his prime and that was the end of his run. He was more impressive than Thurmans been but once again, Thurman hasn't been beat up and quit in the corner when things weren't going his way. That's a bigger deal for a fighter than you seem willing to admit. It's a big deal to the point that I can't 100% pick him over an overall inferior fighter in Thurman. And when I say overall I mean talent and skills, which don't mean a lot when you can't take the heat or a punch.
I don't think you need to break out the big names... He didn't have the intangibles of much lesser fighters than those. Much lesser fighters have answered the bell while taking less punishment than Curry did against Honeyghan. Curry was forgotten by the public and not put in mythical match ups too often because he disqualified himself. He was properly seen as a fragile quitter. It's only now that he's a more mysterious obscure name that people started name dropping him on forums because younger fans don't remember him getting exposed.
You've gone to the other extreme and are making it seem like ANY guy with more intangibles than Curry would be capable of beating him, and it doesn't work that way. If you wanna make a case of Ike Quartey beating Curry, fine. I disagree with it, but its not absurd to say as Quartey was a quality fighter. Keith Thurman was plain and simple not in Curry's league, and intangibles go out the window since we don't even know how THURMAN would react in a tough fight.
Bunkum. The entire HISTORY of boxing is based on one-off nights and performances. It cannot be explained away with vague and fleeting notions of "100%" I am sure if that Ray Robinson had Mayweather-esque layoffs and managerial advantages he would have retired 156906-0 with loads of KO's.
