Thursday, April 10, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
Of all the possible scenarios, it may have been the least likely one that actually came to pass.
Few in the audience Wednesday night at the Aladdin Hotel or watching on DirecTV expected to see former two-time world champion Donald Curry so thoroughly dominated. Fewer still expected to see him embarrassed.
But showing none of the skills that made him an undisputed welterweight champion and a contender for "pound-for-pound" honors a decade ago, Curry was hurt, picked apart and destroyed by his onetime prot'eg'e, Emmett Linton, in the main event of a Top Rank boxing card.
The end of the fight -- and Curry's career -- came at 1:08 of the seventh round when trainer Eddie Mustafa Muhammad asked referee Richard Steele to stop the bout, Curry having been on the receiving end of an endless string of punches.
Curry nodded in agreement as the fight was called.
"I was weak as hell," he said later in his dressing room, his sympathizers keeping a quiet vigil. "Man, I was weak. I'm real disappointed."
And ready to retire.
"That's it," he said. "I can't train that hard and lose like that. I care too much about myself."
It was emotional on several fronts, Curry being forced to accept not only a career-ending defeat but also having it come at the hands of Linton. The two, once friends, had become such enemies that they engaged in a 1995 street fight that led to both men going to their cars for guns. "If it came down to it, it was his life before mine," Linton said of reaching for a pistol before cooler heads prevailed.
But it was Linton doing all the shooting at the Aladdin.
"I did what I wanted to do," he said. "I showed him he's got nothing left."
Before leaving the ring, Muhammad made sure Curry and Linton were through as adversaries. "It's over, right?" he said to both men, who later exchanged a brief hug.
Yet after the bulk of the press moved away, Linton had a few comments that were less than heartwarming. He talked about wanting to hurt Curry with every punch.
The thing is, he did.
"I knew I was getting hit more than usual," Curry said with another aging fighter, Tommy Hearns, attempting to comfort him. The consolation may have been appreciated yet it hardly boosted Curry's distraught spirits.
(Still another aging fighter, former light heavyweight champion Donny Lalonde, failed to impress in the Aladdin's semimain event, settling for a TKO-7 over light-hitting Joe Stevenson. Lalonde, 38-4, also injured his right hand in the bout.)
Linton, 25, had Curry down in the first round with a body shot and won every round until the timely stoppage.
Curry, 35, had insurmountable troubles with his balance and his mechanics. He was constantly wobbly, constantly in danger of being badly hurt.
He looked nothing like the man who earned $5 million in a fabulous career that was at its zenith when he defeated the likes of Marlon Starling, Milton McCrory and Gianfranco Rosi some 10 years ago.
Curry was paid $30,000 for this fight, which dropped his record to 34-6. Linton, who took home $50,000, improved to 23-2 and did his foundering career a world of good.
"I know Donald well and I knew his bark was bigger than his bite," Linton said, although he admitted to being "surprised" that Curry offered so little resistance.
A final irony: For all the years Curry worked with Linton as his trainer, trying to make his man look good, it wasn't until they got in the ring together that Curry actually made Linton appear to be a star.
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