I just had my first experience of watching Donald Curry. I have heard how great he was in his peak and heard some say he was at his best against Colin Jones, which I have just finished watching. What a great exhibition of boxing! There was a great moment in the third where Curry was very close to Jones, making him miss a bunch of shots and coming back with sharp counter punches. His jab was so accurate. His ability to stand straight in front of Jones and not get clean was very impressive. This content is protected What are our thoughts of this performance? Just how good was Jones and did he earn this shot? What other Curry performances would you recommend?
It wasn't Curry's most exhilarating win, but he seemed to have reached a point where he was in complete control of distance, timing and punch selection. Jones was a beast, but Curry seemed so calm and composed under fire. Without getting too carried away, it was almost matrix-style how he was seeing and picking punches. Jones seems to be underrated these days. He had two classic wins over Kirkland Laing, and was unlucky in the first fight with McCrory. He would have picked up a belt of some kind in most alphabet eras.
Jones was very good and did deserve this shot. Regarding Curry, you have to see his unification match with Milt McCrory. You will see one of the most lethal left hooks ever in that second round. Also his fight with Nino LaRocca. Nino was a bit of an anomaly with a lot of hype behind him, but Curry burst that bubble. I like his fight with Elio Diaz also. Diaz came with heavy credentials regarding his power. Curry took a number of his shots without flinching and slowly, methodically ground him down and made him quit on his stool. I would also recommend - just for a really good shoot-out - Curry's fight with Terry Norris. Curry was wayyyyyy past his sell-by date, but still had enough in the tank to land some bombs on the prime Norris to make it entertaining before Norris lowered the boom on the veteran.
Thank you, I shall check these out. Looking at his prime, when defending his title, how good was Curry's quality of opposition? How good were the likes of Jun-Suk Hwang, Roger Stafford, Marlon Starling, Elio Diaz, Nino LaRocca, Colin Jones, Milton McCrory and Eduardo Rodriguez? Was this a good division at the time, or more average?
This content is protected What a brutal finish!! McCrory did well in getting up for that left hook. What a finish. Curry was aggressive through all of the fight, very impressive.
Terrific performance he stood in the pocket with a heavy duty puncher and took him apart.At his best Curry was a great fighter.
The division was good and Stafford, Starling, LaRocca, Jones and McCrory were all top drawer at that time. Hwang, Diaz and Rodriguez had really never achieved anything to get their respective title shots other than being from WBA friendly countries.
Don Curry like fighters after Ali retirement suffered from unfair comparisons. After Cuevas ret , SRL semi ret and Duran , Benitez and Hearns moving up to 154 lb the division seemed dull. They weren't HOF ( DC deserves to be ) but there were some tough, talented and hard punching WW who deserve some credit on their own merit.
I heard Donald Curry giving a local radio interview re: his upcoming fight with Nino LaRocca. He was respectful of Nino as a fighter, you knew somebody was going to get a bass-kicking, and it wasn't going to be Curry.
I remember watching that Mac. Jones was a real live contender who could really bang but Curry was probably at his absolute peak that night he looked almost unbeatable. It was a bit frustrating the finish as Colin was a particularly slow starter who really came on strong. It would have been interesting if he could have taken it past half way. Irrelevant though as his nose was almost cut in two!
This fight was understandably billed as boxer versus puncher, but Curry surprised a lot of people by staying right there and coming up the middle with crisp shots. He later said this was necessitated because the ring was very soft and slow, and that moving a lot would have been difficult. He decided instead to simply take the fight to Jones. A calculated risk for sure, but he knew how slow a starter Jones was.
Donald probably made his buddy Milton jealous with how he handled Colin. Marlon probably would have handled him better.
He was just the best of a so so bunch. James Green, years past his prime. Milton was very average Honeyghan, McCallum, Norris were solid, reputable champions, actual established NAME fighters, and will always beat him
