The World Isn’t Knocking Itself Out for This One

The thing to say about a championship prize fight is, “The city of -- -- -- -- -- -- was agog today on the eve of the battle of the century between . . . “ As in, “The city of Philadelphia was agog today as it awaited the Dempsey-Tunney titanic at Sesqui-Centennial Stadium . . . “

An alternative is, “All roads led to Philadelphia today as . . . “

Well, Las Vegas is not exactly agog today as it awaits the championship prize fight Friday night between--wait a minute, I’ve got it right here, er, I had it a minute ago.

Here it is! It’s a fight between either Donald or Bruce Curry and one of the McCrory brothers.

They are the, er, ah, hold it a second . . . Ah, I’ve got it--welterweight champions of the world! Both of them.

You see, champions come in multiples these days. Divisions come by the gross. Every time some banana republic “czar” of boxing wants to charge TV a fat fee for “sanctioning” a title bout, he creates a new division. Or a new world boxing council. Whichever is easier.

The result, of course, is gross confusion. When you have two of anything, you have none of anything. And boxing is not in such tip-top shape that it can afford any ambivalence on its marquee. I mean, when Dempsey and Tunney were champions, they were champions, period. Nobody ever had to put any qualifying initials beside Joe Louis’ name.

About two months ago, they put on a fight in this town between a couple of . . . well, not palookas, exactly, but between a washed-up heavyweight champion and a blown-up light-heavyweight whom Dempsey might have chased right out of the ring and up the Strip.

But one of them was Larry Holmes and Larry had name value. “Star quality,” Hollywood used to call it. Marquee value. A recognition factor. A guy who had his name in the papers, on magazine covers. The guy who beat Muhammad Ali, if you can believe anybody would be dumb enough to do that.

Well, this week, Las Vegas has a much better fight than Holmes vs. Michael Spinks--in fact, one of the best fights of the last several years in the division. These guys are the likes of Sugar Ray Robinson and Carmen Basilio, or Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran.

When Holmes and Michael Spinks fought, you couldn’t get a cab in this town. You couldn’t get near the crap tables. The head waiters did a land-office business.

This week, you’ll have no trouble placing a bet. The croupiers are waiting. The air isn’t clogged with guys being paged. There aren’t lines at the cab stand.

These guys make Rodney Dangerfield look like a statue in the park. Whozit Curry vs. Whatsisname McCrory.

You get a measure of the obscurity of one when you know that a news service story went all over the country Monday identifying Curry as Bruce Curry.

He’s not. His brother is Bruce Curry. This Curry is Donald. So far as is known, no editor nationally knew to make the change.

Milton McCrory is known, if at all, as the brother of Steve McCrory who won the Olympic lightweight gold medal in Los Angeles in 1984. Or, failing that, as a stablemate of Thomas (Hit Man) Hearns.

In this fight, Milton, who adopted the nom de ring of Iceman because of his semi-detached style of fighting, is cast in the role of the “opponent.” The stylistic Curry is the darling of the oddsmakers. At 4-1, you get the impression he must be fighting his chauffeur.

The odds outrage McCrory. Like Curry, he is undefeated. Like Curry, he came up through hundreds of amateur fights.

It is the opinion of those who have watched them fight that these two are the finest technicians in the ring today. You might have to go back to Benny Leonard, certainly to the original Sugar Ray, to find such mistake-free tactics.

McCrory knocked out six of the first seven guys he fought in the first round. He knocked out all of his first 17.

Then, he unaccountably moved out to become a defensive fighter. He fought the Briton Colin Jones, a tough, willing, but not overpowering welterweight, as if he were a combination of Jake LaMotta and Ernie (The Rock) Durando. He drew with Jones the first time and won a split decision the second.

Colin Jones is not that good. Donald Curry knocked him out in the fourth round.

The suspicion grew that McCrory didn’t like it when they started hitting back.

So, McCrory unaccustomedly moved in and went on the attack this week. Not in the ring, in the press conferences. He announced gravely, almost more in sorrow than in anger, that it was his opponent that lacked heart.

“When a fighter is cautious, that means he don’t have a lot of heart,” McCrory said. “You see, Larry Holmes was tentative. Curry is tentative. You can’t be tentative. You got to come out shooting from the first round to the last round.”

To the somewhat astonished hearing of his interviewers, Milton opined that such would be his strategy.

The fight mob is skeptical. It points out that one of the main reasons the fight is even-money to go the distance, is Milton McCrory. “When McCrory doesn’t want to get knocked out, McCrory won’t get knocked out,” the announcer Larry Merchant said.

McCrory, as usual, has a counterpunch.

“I don’t like what I been reading about Milton McCrory in the papers,” he complains. “I’m getting good money ($750,000 plus) for this fight, but it’s not big money when in comparison with what Hearns and (Marvin) Hagler got.

“I don’t have a deep passion for fighting. It’s not my first choice of making a living. I had either it or the Army or the Ford plant. But as long as I’m in it, I give it everything.”

In other words, McCrory proposes to get charisma--or get knocked out. Either way, he’ll beat the price and surprise the fight mob. Either way, he can turn the best fight nobody ever heard of into Rocky V.

“Come early. And don’t turn your head,” warns McCrory.