{"id":66488,"date":"2017-03-21T16:00:21","date_gmt":"2017-03-21T21:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=66488"},"modified":"2017-03-21T16:03:44","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T21:03:44","slug":"lloyd-honeyghan-remembered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=66488","title":{"rendered":"Lloyd Honeyghan Remembered"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"200px-honeyghan93553617\"<\/a>By Donald \u201cBraveheart\u201d Stewart<\/strong><\/p>\n

If I have not mentioned before, then let me say again \u2013 the 1980\u2019s were a kind of blur to me. Having got into the University in 1982, I went on a spree of alcohol haziness that lasted till the dawn of the nineties.<\/p>\n

There are good memories that exist in amongst the haze though, in a sporting sense, much have to do with following my local soccer team who, by this time were beginning to show remarkable signs of being able to win things. Personally, I was living a nightmare of one crisis leading deftly into another and then hoping to become a teacher when in 1986, the world welcomed a new British super star in boxing that shattered America.<\/p>\n

It was September \u2013 the 27th, when Lloyd Honeyghan managed to achieve the dream of breaking into America. Thing is he not only broke in but took the WBA, WBC, IBF, Ring and lineal welterweight titles in full view of the paying public at the same time.
\nIt cannot be underestimated just how important to the British \u2013 particularly the English \u2013 that it is to break into the US.<\/p>\n

At times, it appears like they are avenging the Mayflower, but \u201cbreaking America\u201d has been a halcyon cry long before the Beatles managed it in the sixties. Even now as we prepare in Manchester and Glasgow for massive world title fights for Anthony Crolla and Ricky Burns, rewards are talked about in terms of Las Vegas headlines and massive nights in the capital of boxing\u2019s dreamland.<\/p>\n

Honeyghan showed them how to really so it as he was one guy who went over a contender and came back a King.<\/p>\n

His fight, against Donald Curry, in Atlantic City was both a classic and a massive upset.<\/p>\n

We knew Honeyghan well \u2013 he was already the British, European and Commonwealth title holders at welterweight. We knew Curry \u2013 he was just a legend \u2013 unbeaten and undisputed.<\/p>\n

Traveling abroad to win world titles was hardly new and Honeyghan had been out to the US before to fight in 1983 and had won \u2013 we should have been more confident \u2013 his promoter struggled to find any bookmakers that would give him odds on Honeyghan winning.
\nYou could certainly have scoured the UK and several other countries to find anyone who gave Honeyghan a chance. Well this scruff went out to Curry\u2019s backyard and dominated him from the first bell. Having come close to dropping him in the 2nd round, Honeyghan eventually managed to make the champion retire by the end of the 6th.<\/p>\n

Before the fight, Curry had called him a ragamuffin and from then on, he lived on the legend of that night under the legend of the name that Curry gave him as the ragamuffin man.<\/p>\n

The whole night had gone to heel in a hand cart for Curry. Honeyghan hand been handpicked to fight the younger Curry. Both may have been undefeated though Honeyghan was to be the fall guy, the step over, the doormat; problem was, they forgot to tell the patsy that. To be fair, the boxing world knew that Curry was probably the best fighter of the time but he was hardly popular. The hall was tiny, the care and attention of a world title fight missing and the expectations of anything happening worth reporting low.<\/p>\n

Much of the media attention was about a possible Marvin Hagler\/Donald Curry $10 Million Bob Arum sponsored showdown after Honeyghan had been sent back to London; their attention elsewhere it was forcibly made to pay attention back to this new shiny word champion who had wrecked all their plans.
\nThoughts of anything that big were vanquished from the first Honeyghan onslaught. Curry was rag dolled and beaten to a pulp: Curry ended the fight with a broken nose, torn lip and 20 stitches above his left eye.
\nOne young man, sitting close by at ringside, who was mesmerized by the sight was Mike Tyson, who was shocked and in awe of the new champion. It was widely reported that he said at the time, \u201cLloyd doesn\u2019t fight like a British guy, he\u2019s mean and nasty.\u201d Weeks later Tyson showed the world how nasty he could be in winning his own world title for the first time.<\/p>\n

Honeyghan though was a man of principles and when the WBA ordered him to fight a South African during Apartheid\u2019s heyday, he dumped the belt in a bin and refuse to do so, this relinquishing his belt; Honeyghan has always been a man of singular views and attitudes \u2013 he fought with more than one major promoter during his career.<\/p>\n

A few years later, in order to fight for another WBA belt, he had to apologize to that governing body though that was not as successful as his first assault on the world scene though he was to win another world title in his career.
\nIt has led to much by way of eulogizing Honeyghan, who still struts round boxing halls in England as a figure to whom we gratefully owe hangovers and nights of pure joy. His ragamuffin persona now replaced by a resplendent couture that causes people to stare, point, even snugger but in September 1986, there was nobody able to laugh more heartily than he.<\/p>\n