Comments Thread For: Curry's Sad But Important Story is a Tale That Needs To Be Told

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

"Hello All," Donovan Curry began typing on twitter last week, addressing the 900-plus followers his dad, Donald 'The Lone Star Cobra' Curry, has on social media. "I'm speaking on behalf of my father, Donald Curry today. A champion of the world of boxing, one of the greatest welterweights of all time. However, today I'm asking for help. Not in a monetary way, but to spread awareness hopefully find a solution for retired athletes with head trauma and symptoms of CTE. For the last 3 years, I've tried to find help for my father to possibly get a CT scan or have a mental evaluation take place, but living far away and him not being able to travel correctly have dampened that situation."
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[SteveM]

Sad news and story. I for one would make a small voluntary contribution(s) to a properly founded, organized and audited organisation specifically setup to help ex-professional boxers with issues such as these, but there doesn't seem to be such an org.
As a fan, the one thing that doesn't sit right with me is that I derive a lot of enjoyment from a sport of which a percentage of the participants will end up with CTE or similar.
And this story gets written because it is about a former star so it will resonate. What about all the stories out there of the fighters who have records such as 5-35-4 ? Those poor fuckers must have an even greater chance of suffering from dementia - if they are still alive.

[DaNeutral.]

There is so much money going through this sport that these organisations like the WBC and WBA could set millions aside for a life time health care package, also the fighters themselves along with their promoters should be paying in to some pension package of some kind to help them through things just like this.

I'm not clued up on that side of the sport maybe things like that are already happening but at the end of the day we shouldn't have to read stories like this.

And as STEVEM above said, what about those low level fighters who we have seen take beatings after beatings while earning pennies..

It's a dangerous sport, these men and women are putting themselves through the meat grinder big time, we are medically advanced to know the damage that is being done if like to see more after care.

[Oldskoolg]

Very sad. I remember watching curry and I remember cheering against him when he locked horns with one of my favourite fighters of all time Lloyd Honeyghan. Boxing of my youth and younger years is not the boxing of today. Boxers have more control over their options and in doing so we have seen a shift from the traditional promoter-fighter dynamic with fighters having their own promotional companies and controlling more of their money while hiring competent business minds to manage their finances rather than promoters running their finances. The rise of the “advisor” role in boxing is a direct response to the fighters who I grew up seeing being broke and destitute later in life. We also see it in fight by fight deals rather than long contracts from other promoters. As it stands there is really only one major promoter in the usa that still deals in the old way of promoting as hopefully when he has literally moved on to greener pastures boxing as a whole can say goodbye to that style of promoting.
However, that’s not to say that the sanctioning bodies should t have a role. The WBA, WBC, WBO, and the IBF should take a portion of their fees and set place monetary packages into funds that seek moderately aggressive gains for each one of their fighters. I’m no genius of civil law in the usa, but I had such investments that I took out while working my second career that I did not touch until retirement and having a third and fourth source of retirement income is a beautiful thing in retirement. The sanctioning bodies could do this. If a cop can do it with his paycheque than a man fighting for 250k a pop all the way to 40m certainly can. The fighters themselves should be doing this and if they are with the right advisors they are being taught to but many are not. Boxers come from the bottom of the social barrel most of the time and with very little education especially in the USA, Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe etc. A lack of education and fiscal knowledge, and honestly illiteracy, have all traditionally been problems for boxers being taken advantage by the boxing system. I could pull up examples, even the great Rocky Marciano had his issues with money and the boxing system much to the chagrin of his accountant. Sad to hear curry is living like this. Not only is he broke but now suffers from a TBI, which effectively makes him mentally disabled. I cannot begin to list the amount of times I came across those who should have been redirected to mental health facilities rather than incarceration. Traditionally law enforcement has been bad about this. As a profession, LE has learned and is taking steps. The modern police officer has to be an amateur social worker as much as a law enforcer. The amount of education you see in law enforcement towards mental health is substantial as it should be. Not everyone needs to go to jail…many need medication, many need outpatient programs, many need therapy, many need emergency psych detention at a proper behavioural hospital, many need to be shown how to apply for disability, etc. The system fails the mentally disabled, but boxing really needs to find a way to set its champions up for success in
later life. Not everyone has an al Haymon who’s showing fighters how to maximise fiscal gains. The sanctioning bodies need to get involved. And every promoter from major to minor needs to have a corporate internal program that all fighters signed must be made aware of that introduces them to investments, long term fiscal responsibility, and educates them on mental health both during and after their careers. These are attainable goals.

[Liondw]

It is very sad indeed. I notice the son is not letting the father stay with him, but guess he has reasons.

We see the CTE damage not only in current and former pro boxers, but in mma fighters and American football players.

I think of former great fighters like Meldrick Taylor and Riddick Bowe, as well as Terry Norris, suffering from some form of damage. They are not treated well after boxing.

Unfortunately, they would hopefully have a support system and a lot of money saved for life after boxing.

[rudy]

This is so sad Top Rank should be helping him as they promoted a lot of his fights. Promoters like him should do better people slag off Don King but nothing against Arum reason he is white

[NYboxFan]

Fighters have to know when to retire, especially those that are prone to take a lot of shots to the head. Saw the four kings documentary the other day and It was very apparent Tommy Hearns is affected by this. His speech is hard to understand.

[Oldskoolg]

Speaking of Terry Norris, you could see his speech starting to slur even when he was active. He really suffered some brutal knockouts

[Paperball86]

This is so sad Top Rank should be helping him as they promoted a lot of his fights. Promoters like him should do better people slag off Don King but nothing against Arum reason he is white

People talk **** about Arum all the time. Wtf you talking about... cut that racist **** out lol..

[hitmanjosh]

This is a deep and long conversation but I’ll take a few moments to address some of the ignorance and the nasty business of boxing also. I’m a former fighter myself from Michigan so I have seen the bad match making, corrupt promoters and pimp/mangers! I last saw Donald when Sugar Ray Leonard fought Hector Camacho in Atlantic City and he even had to have someone vouch for him to attend the weighin and I thought how sad, because here I am a very low level former fighter at the time and I got straight in, but he was having a hard time at the door, until someone spoke up. The sport has to be one of the worst when it comes to the nasty folks behind the scenes. This is a business and it’s unfortunate the people involved don’t give a dam about whom they represent most often. The James Toney’s of the world and his situation doesn’t surprise me, he was nasty to people and a controller who had to have his way so he was very disrespectful to Jackie and everyone he felt like saying kiss my (A) to get out my dam gym, but don’t get me wrong the manager’s are bad themselves and have control issues modeling slavery. Donald many years ago was involved with drug dealers from the Mid West and they did time in prison lots of it, but he had money during those days and got a pass or something like a snitch, you tell me. The sport of boxing is what it is due to the crooks behind the scenes, fighters are just doing what their good or are capable of doing. That’s all