Donald Curry
Oddsmakers considered Curry vs Honeyghan
to be such a mismatch that some would not offer a betting line. However,
Honeyghan came into the fight with great confidence and bet $5000
on himself at 5-1 odds. “I want people to know how much I believe
in myself,” he said. “I can’t wait to start punching Curry on the
head. I’m going to smash his face in.”
Honeyghan easily won the
opening two rounds, pressuring Curry and rocking him badly in the
second round. Curry came back to win the next two rounds, but he had
little left after that. He was drained from struggling to make weight
having to lose 11 pounds three days before the fights. “I was weak
and sluggish. I had no strength in my legs, and my timing just wasn’t
there. I wasn’t myself,” Curry said after the fight. “I won’t fight
as a welterweight again.”
Akbar Muhammad said Curry weighted
168 pounds six and a half weeks prior to the fight, before he went
to New Orleans to train. Then his grandfather’s death caused the fighter
to lose concentration. “His weight went up to 157, 158. He told me,
‘I don’t think I can make the weight.’ He wanted to pull out of the
fight,” 0Muhammad said. “I told him he was a professional and had
an obligation to meet.”
Honeyghan manhandled Curry in rounds
five and six. Late in the sixth, an accidental headbutt opened a bad
cut over Curry’s left eye. Returning to his corner after the sixth,
with blood flowing down his face, Curry shook his head and was heard
to tell his corner, “I’m through.” Ringside physicians Frank Doggett
and Paul Williams examined the cut after the sixth round and told
referee Octavio Meyran to stop the fight, giving Honeyghan a TKO victory.
The Ring magazine named the fight Upset of the Year.
Move up
in weight
After losing to Honeyghan, Curry moved up to the light middleweight
division.
Curry defeated Tony Montgomery to win the USBA light
middleweight title on February 7, 1987. Montgomery was disqualified
in the fifth round for intentional headbutts. Curry’s next opponent,
former IBF light middleweight champion Carlos Santo, was also disqualified
in the fifth round for intentional headbutts.
On April 6, 1987,
the day Sugar Ray Leonard defeated Marvelous Marvin Hagler for the
world middleweight championship and two days after defeating Santos,
Curry filed a million dollar lawsuit against Leonard and his attorney,
Mike Trainer. The suit stated that Leonard and Trainer took “undue
and unconscionable advantage of Curry” through fraud, conspiracy and
breach of financial responsibilities, and they “conspired to prevent
Curry from entering the middleweight divisions to assure Leonard’s
unobstructed opportunity to fight the middleweight champion”.
