BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : Curry Confident He Can Come Back, Regain the Glory of Five Years Ago

Five years ago, Donald Curry was the greatest young fighter you ever saw.

Everyone in boxing believed it: Donald Curry would be the Sugar Ray Leonard of the 1990s. He couldn’t miss: He was as smooth as silk, whippet-quick and had excellent power.

But the Curry legend began to unravel on the night of Sept. 27, 1986, in Atlantic City, N.J. Curry showed up out of shape to defend his welterweight championship against Lloyd Honeyghan of England.

What few knew was that Curry had built a 24-0 record on talent alone.

In one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s or of any other decade, Honeyghan stopped Curry in the sixth round. Then the whispers began: Curry wasn’t much for hard work in the gym. And it figured. With talent like he had, who needs roadwork?

Still, most put down the defeat by Honeyghan as a painful lesson learned, assuming that Curry would soon resume punching his way toward one of boxing’s numerous halls of fame.

He won a couple of fights in early 1987, then was matched against Mike McCallum that July. McCallum knocked him out with one punch.

Curry, 29, has never recaptured the magic. He has lost twice since the McCallum bout, most recently to Michael Nunn in October. The other day, he signed to fight Terry Norris in Palm Springs on June 1 for Norris’ junior-middleweight championship.

Can he come back?

“At this point, it’s important for me to take it one fight at a time,” Curry said. “If I can beat Terry Norris decisively, and I mean if I knock him out, then let’s see what people say about my career.”

It’s an interesting match of 154-pounders. Curry said he is a natural light-middleweight, and acknowledged that Nunn, in their Paris fight, was simply too much for him. Nunn, a middleweight champion, stopped Curry in the 10th round of a fight he was winning handily on points.

“For Nunn, I was mentally prepared,” Curry said, “but he just wore me down. Yeah, he was stronger than I was.”

For Norris, it’s his first time back in the spotlight since he retired Sugar Ray Leonard in New York on Feb. 10. Curry seems confident he can beat Norris and become again what he once was.

“I don’t see Terry as a difficult fight,” he said. “Terry has quick hands, quick feet and he’s technically a very good boxer. But I have some things going for me, too.”

The Norris-Curry bout is being promoted by Ten Goose Boxing, which will stage the show in a 6,500-seat arena--tickets are $300 to $25--on a sunken tennis court at the Sonny Bono Tennis Club.

Also on the card, Meldrick Taylor will defend his welterweight championship against No. 1-ranked Luis Garcia, and Ten Goose’s unbeaten featherweight, Gabe Ruelas, will launch his comeback. Ruelas had a 21-0 record before he suffered a broken right elbow a year ago in a fight against Jeff Franklin in Las Vegas.

Greg Haugen, who upset Hector Camacho last February in Las Vegas and then tested positive for marijuana after the bout, will fight Camacho again in Reno on May 18.

Haugen was fined $25,000 and ordered to serve 200 hours of community service as part of a rehabilitation program by the commission. A rematch was ordered.

And this time, the Nevada commission will pay closer attention to the selection of judges than it did the last time. Denver reporter Wayne Anderson pointed out recently that one Haugen-Camacho judge, Bill McConkey, promoted two Haugen fights early in the boxer’s career in Alaska.

Chuck Minker, executive director of the Nevada commission, said McConkey made a “serious judgment” error in not informing the commission of his previous relationship with Haugen.

However, Minker found no grounds to suspect McConkey’s scorecard, which had Haugen a two-point winner. Haugen won a close, split decision, aided by referee Carlos Padilla, who deducted a point from Camacho when he punched at Haugen instead of participating in the traditional glove-touch to start the final round.

Tired of boxing stories about illegal drug use, impostors, fraudulent ratings, phony championships, washed-up fighters still fighting and assorted acts of white-collar crime?

Once in a while, a fighter comes along who finds a way to transfer the discipline and hard-work ethic he has learned in boxing to life outside the ring.

Henry Tillman, as a teen-ager, was a Los Angeles street thug. He spent nearly a year at the California Youth Authority’s Chino facility, where he learned to box.

Then, in one of the most improbable achievements of the 1984 Olympic Games, Tillman, with very little amateur boxing experience, won the gold medal in the heavyweight class.

Update: Henry Tillman, now 30, is studying for the California real estate license examination, and is a trainee at Wall Street Financial, a Diamond Bar mortgage firm.

Tillman’s pro boxing career never worked out as he had hoped. But indications are he is planning on being a much bigger winner in the game of life. And for this one, you have to give boxing an assist.

Former Ram defensive back LeRoy Irvin, trying to establish himself as a boxing promoter in Arizona, has bounced checks in Phoenix twice since March of 1990, according to the Arizona Boxing Commission.

Most recently, he owes a total of $1,185 to three boxers and a referee from checks that were returned after his March 12 boxing card, the commission said. Irvin, who earned $350,000 from the Detroit Lions last season after playing 10 years with the Rams, also wrote checks that were returned after a March 1990 show, the commission said.

And Houston matchmaker Bill Benton said Irvin owes him money, too, but wouldn’t disclose the amount. “LeRoy left town and left me holding the bag,” Benton said.

Irvin could not be reached for comment.

Boxing Notes

Ten Goose Boxing chief Dan Goossen described Terry Norris’ campsite, at Campo, Calif., as “30 minutes east of San Diego.” Only if Jose Canseco is driving, Dan. . . . The California Athletic Commission has denied a license application by Ishmael Rivera and told him to “cease and desist” operating his gym at 604 W. Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles. The commission staff says Rivera has violated several state boxing regulations. . . . HBO boxing pay-per-view chief Seth Abraham is predicting that the April 19 Evander Holyfield-George Foreman heavyweight title bout will gross $75 million worldwide.