DONALD CURRY w ko 2 MILTON McCRORY
Dec 6, 1985; Las Vegas Hilton, Las Vegas, NV
IN a fight that was a huge deal at the time, unbeaten welterweights Donald Curry and Milton McCrory clashed in a unification bout for the WBC, WBA and IBF titles. The winner would be the first undisputed champion at 147lbs since Sugar Ray Leonard walked away in 1982. Both men were guaranteed $750,000 but Curry started as a 4/1 favourite. McCrory scored first but Curry was soon on top. “I could see after just 20 seconds the confusion in his eyes,” Curry reported in the aftermath. In the interval between rounds one and two, McCrory’s trainer, Emanuel Steward, told his fighter that Curry was going to tire and that he was fighting “tighter” than usual. Whether true or not, Curry violently ended the bout in the second.
DID YOU KNOW? McCrory told BN in 2017 that he never “liked being a boxer. I was just good at it. I should have been a baseball player.”
WATCH OUT FOR: How good Curry really was. The finish, and how it was set up, exhibits Curry at his best and a fighter who briefly stood tall alongside Marvin Hagler as the best boxer in the sport.