By: Sean Crose
I’d been watching him fight since I was around 12 years old. My father knew him vaguely, and it was always a pleasure seeing a local Connecticut guy getting attention. On this particular Saturday afternoon in 1987 though, Marlon Starling wasn’t getting the kind of attention he might have hoped for. He was expected to lose to his opponent that day, the highly decorated Mark Breland, a former gold medalist and the current WBA world champion. It wasn’t that Starling was looked down upon. He was just seen as being a stepping stone for Breland. He had lost two albeit close fights to Donald Curry years earlier, possibly leading to a belief that he wasn’t on the cutting edge of the sport anymore.
It was Starling however who shocked the world that Saturday afternoon in South Carolina. Before a national televised audience Starling pursued Breland for round after round. He was losing no doubt and Breland’s jab told much of the story. In the end however Starling caught his man and unloaded with a torrent of punches, knocking Breland out. Yesterday’s news had become breaking news in a matter of seconds.
From there on Starling went ahead and fought Breland to a draw for the rematch, then got nailed by a sucker punch from Tomas Molinares, only to recover and destroy the feared Lloyd Honeyghan which led to Starlings being in possession of the WBC world welterweight title. A trip up to middleweight proved to be a bit too much as Starling lost to Michael Nunn. But his reputation by that point was already well established. Fighting for the last time in 1990, Starling left the ring in high regard. And then.. nothing.
Here was a man who besides beating Breland and Honeyghan went to the mat with Donald Curry onto occasions and who bested the likes of Simon Brown and Floyd Mayweather senior. Yet the man was overlooked when it came to his getting on the International Boxing Hall of Fame ballot again and again and again. Finally this week after decades outside of the ring, Starling finally belatedly found himself on the Hall of Fame ballot. They say good things come to those who wait but Starling undoubtedly had help from another Connecticut fighter – trainer and broadcaster, John Scully. For it’s been Scully whose led the charge to get Sterling on the Hall of Fame ballot for what seems like forever now.
“I’ve obviously felt for a long time that Marlon should be at least placed on the ballot,” Scully says, “based on the sheer number of contenders and champions that he fought and beat over the course of his career. Not just that but his willingness to fight anyone and everyone -even moving up as a welterweight to fight Michael Nunn in his prime at 160 is something that we do not see very often today. It is absolutely long overdue that he even got on the ballot and I’m very very excited that it finally happened.” These are words some of us have long been in agreement with.
No one is under any illusions that boxing isn’t an exceedingly dangerous sport. At the very least credit should be given where credit is due. And Starling certainly deserves to be noticed by the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Although Starling doesn’t have the name recognition of such welterweight greats as Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, he was the best of that glamour division in his heyday. With his high guard and boxing IQ he was a threat to any man out there from any era. And that’s not hyperbole.
It’s nice to see the guy get noticed.
