The Time Tunnel: Honeyghan-Curry Remembered

By Jeff Day

23.01 - It would turn out to be the best victory of any British boxer since Randolph Turpin beat the incomparable Sugar Ray Robinson for the World Middleweight Title in July 1951.

Not only that, but when Lloyd Honeyghan took the World Welterweight Title from the 'Lone Star Cobra', Donald Curry, it would be done in the champion's home country.

It was September 27 1986 and for Curry this would be defence number eight of the WBA Welterweight Championship and his second as undisputed king. He was already being touted as a future foe for World Middleweight Champion, Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Other super-fights awaited with the likes of Thomas Hearns, Mike McCallum and John Mugabi.

Lloyd Honeyghan was to be a mere stepping stone on Don's seemingly unstoppable march to boxing immortality. However, the 'Ragamuffin Man' was not reading the script. Still, despite the brashness of the British, Commonwealth and European king, it looked too tall an order.

At 25, Curry was surely entering his prime; the natural successor to the retired (!?) Sugar Ray Leonard. Curry had won all 25 of his professional fights, with all but five finishing inside schedule. Although he always seemed there to be hit, his reflexes were superb, as he kept his hands nice and high whilst stalking his opponent.

He had great hand-speed to go with his brutal power and appeared the world's most complete fighter. Having said that, it was no secret that he was tight at the weight to say the least and there was talk of a move to junior-middleweight in the not too distant future.

Curry would have been hot favourite to be Olympic Champion at the Moscow games, but the United States boycotted those games due to the occupation of Afghanistan by the USSR.

Don won the NABF Welterweight crown in only his 12th fight, by knocking out former World Title challenger Bruce Finch in four rounds. That was in May 1982. He added the USBA crown in October the same year with a points win over 12 against future World king Marlon Starling.

A professional for just over two years, he took the WBA Welterweight Championship, beating the tough Korean Jun-Suk Hwang over the old fifteen round distance. His most notable defences were victories over Roger Stafford (KO1), Marlon Starling (W15) and Welshman Colin Jones (TKO4).

His fight against Colin Jones took place in Birmingham and Curry produced a quite majestic performance as he dissected the Welsh hero, leaving him with a horrendous gash across the bridge of the nose. Colin was no mug; had lost one and drawn one against the WBC holder Milton McCrory. The obvious match was Curry-McCrory, and it took place on 6 December 1985 in Las Vegas. The biggest welterweight match since Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns four years earlier.

It turned out to be a mismatch. McCrory, fighting out of the Kronk Gym looked very tentative in the first round as Curry stalked. Then in the second, Curry connected with a devastating short left hook. The punch travelled no more than a few inches, but the effect it had on Milton was mind-numbing.

McCrory got to his feet and referee Mills Lane should have stopped it there and then, because Milton didn't know what day of the week it was. Curry nonchalantly walked over and smashed a right against McCrory's jaw: fight over! Donald Curry had won the WBC title and was now rightly claimed World Welterweight Champion. (The IBF, by the way, as if anyone really cared, claimed Curry as their champion following his second win over Starling). One defence followed, a two round win over Ed Ruiz in Fort Worth, the champion's hometown, before he was to meet his number one contender from
England.

Lloyd Honeyghan was a complex character; did not suffer fools, could appear brusque and arrogant, yet in interviews often appeared cordial and amiable. Maybe misunderstood. Whatever, he could fight. Whether he could do it at world level or just at home and in Europe remained to be seen. One thing Lloyd did not lack was confidence. He went to Atlantic City claiming he was not scared of the champion. Although unbeaten in twenty seven fights, the 26 year old Brit still wasn't regarded as threat by anybody outside his own camp. British champion in his 16th fight and European king in his 21st (beating future junior middleweight king Gianfranco Rosi in Italy), Honeyghan was learning his trade gradually under the astute managership of Mickey Duff. In November 1985, Lloyd met Sylvester Mittee, his British rival in a triple title showdown (Mittee was Commonwealth king). It was an unofficial World title eliminator. Honeyghan was now entering his prime and was an eighth round knockout winner.

There would be one more test for Lloyd to pass. It came in the shape of number one ranked (WBC) Horace Shufford. Honeyghan had home advantage in the fight on 20 May 1986 and made the most of it by winning by knockout - again in the eighth.

Still, the gulf between the top contenders and the reigning incumbent appeared huge even if Honeyghan had earned the right to fight for the title. Like John H Stracey eleven years earlier, Lloyd would face a dominant champion in the other man's backyard. However, although Jose Napoles, the man Stracey would depose, seemed a safe bet, he was a fading champion. Curry was going to be a whole different ball game. Surely.......

Before the first bell, Curry looked his usual composed self. Honeyghan looked pumped up and ready for war, bouncing on his toes in his glistening cerise shorts. Not too much happened in the opener, other than Lloyd tried a few speculative rights towards the end of it. It was a decent start for the challenger.

Round two, and for the first time, the inkling of a shock: Honeyghan threw a downward right that landed on Curry's head. The champion almost went down, but managed to compose himself. Lloyd tried to find the finisher, but Curry's experience and dancing feet kept him out of further danger - for now.

Don asserted himself for the first time in the fight in the third. He began to get his boxing together and his confidence was ebbing back. The near disastrous second round appeared no more than an aberration. In the fourth round, Curry got his combinations working. Honeyghan was looking slightly disorganised. Was he losing the self belief necessary to spring a surprise?

But round five turned into the champion's worst of his career. Honeyghan came out smokin'. A big one-two to the head landed and Curry was getting hammered. The spring in his legs from earlier had gone. The strength wilting. Honeyghan went for the finish. Somehow, Don made it to the end of the round.

He would fiddle his way through the sixth, but Honeyghan was fighting like a man possessed. He would not be denied. Honeyghan continued the onslaught throughout the round. Lloyd's shaven head, intentionally or not, was also a problem to the American, as the challenger burrowed away head down winging looking to end the fight with one mighty blow. At the bell, Curry walked to his corner shaking his head. His nose broken, a bad cut by the left eye and a badly split lip later, the champion could take no more. Lloyd Honeyghan could barely contain himself when Curry could not answer the bell for the seventh.

The new champion threw himself to the floor in ecstasy. Even if almost all of the boxing world was stunned, Lloyd Honeyghan most certainly was not. Honeyghan would make three defences of the title before losing it to Mexico's Jorge Vaca on one of those strange 'technical' decisions in October 1987. He regained it from Vaca in March 1988. Defeat came at the hands of Marlon Starling on 4 April 1989. Lloyd tried to climb the summit again on 3 March 1990, but was almost pitiful, being floored six times en route to a three round defeat. He would win the British and Commonwealth championships at light-middleweight, but never contend at the very highest level again. He was even stopped by Vinnie Pazienza in June 1993 in the tenth round.

On 25 February 1995, Lloyd was beaten by fellow Brit Adrian Dodson in three rounds and that was that. Honeyghan is now promoting good value fights on the small hall circuit (club shows). He remains as enthusiastic and confident in his ability as a promoter as he did when he marched his way to the World Welterweight Championship. For Curry, a year later, after a couple of wins, he challenged Jamaica's Mike McCallum for his WBA Junior Middleweight title. The Curry myth was finally exploded when Donald was laid out like a rug in the fifth. He did capture the WBC Super-Welterweight Championship when he travelled to San Remo, Italy to box former Honeyghan foe, Gianfranco Rosi. Don stopped the Italian in the tenth. It would be Curry's last major win, which came on 8 July 1988.

The championship was lost in his first defence, in France, against homeboy, but unheralded, Rene Jacquot. It was a unanimous decision for Rene. With respect to the Frenchman, two years earlier it's unlikely he would have been permitted to carry Don's spit bucket. How the mighty fall. Curry went on to challenge Michel Nunn for the IBF Middleweight belt (KO by 10) in October 1990 and Terry Norris for his old WBC Super-Welterweight bauble (KO by 8) in June 1991. He was, though, a shell of the man that had captured the imagination five or six years earlier. His final fight, on 9 April 1997, saw him lose in seven rounds to Emmett Linton in Las Vegas. Troubles outside the ring then surfaced, although it seems now that he has got his life back together.

In the case of both Lloyd Honeyghan and Donald Curry, it shows how fast and fleeting success can be in the fight game.