On this day in 1986: Honeyghan stuns Curry to become undisputed champion
Lloyd Honeyghan, barely known in America, forced the unbeaten Donald Curry to retire after six rounds in Atlantic City to take the undisputed welterweight title.
Forty years ago today, Lloyd Honeyghan stepped into the ring in Atlantic City a heavy underdog and left it as undisputed welterweight champion of the world. His sixth-round stoppage of the unbeaten Donald Curry on 27 September 1986 remains one of the biggest wins in British boxing history.
Curry, 25-0 and holder of the WBA, WBC, IBF and The Ring belts, was regarded as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. Honeyghan held the British, Commonwealth and European titles but was virtually unknown in the United States. He had earned the shot by stopping Horace Shufford, the WBC's number-one contender, in eight rounds at Wembley Arena that May. At a pre-fight press conference Curry dismissed him by asking: "Who is this ragamuffin?" Honeyghan adopted the insult as his ring name for the rest of his career.
His manager, Mickey Duff, backed him with a $5,000 bet at 7-1. The fight at the Circus Maximus Showroom justified that faith. Honeyghan won the first two rounds with relentless aggression, buckling Curry's knees with a right hand in the second and forcing him to clinch to survive. Curry took the third and fourth, but Honeyghan hurt him twice with right hands in the fifth. In the sixth an accidental clash of heads opened a gash beneath Curry's left eyebrow. After a round dominated by Honeyghan, the ringside doctor ruled that Curry could not continue. He had suffered a broken nose and a cut above the eye that needed 20 stitches.
The Ring and KO Magazine each named it their upset of the year, according to Wikipedia. Mike Tyson, ringside that night, later became a friend and said of Honeyghan: "He's mean and nasty, he doesn't fight like a British fighter."
Honeyghan gave up the WBA belt in January 1987 in protest at its policy towards apartheid South Africa. It meant the night in Atlantic City was the last undisputed welterweight title fight until Ricardo Mayorga met Cory Spinks in 2003.
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