Ken Jones: Turpin and Honeyghan give hope to Britain's latest no-hoper

Quick now! For a short lesson in nostalgia, part of a course entitled "Startling Events You May Have Forgotten", whose effort on 27 September 1986 rose above all others in British sporting attention that month?

Of course you don't remember. It's almost a trivia question, like who was Muhammad Ali's first professional opponent? (Tunny Hunsaker) Or whose leg-break prevented Don Bradman from retiring with a Test average of 100? (Eric Hollies) And what are the odds against a royal flush in poker?

Pay attention. The date referred to above is that on which Lloyd Honeyghan, to everybody's surprise, including that of his astute trainer, Bobby Neill, battered Donald Curry into submission at the end of the sixth round to become the undisputed welterweight champion. It was the biggest moment in British boxing since Randolph Turpin's sensational points victory over Sugar Ray Robinson in London 35 years earlier.

Because of a suspicion that Curry had struggled to weigh in at the 10st 7lb limit, I was less surprised than most by Honeyghan's triumph that night in Atlantic City, although I had not been confident enough to bet against the champion. Discarding the benefit of hindsight, did I really believe that Honeyghan could succeed where a personal favourite, Colin Jones, had failed?

But let us move on. The point of all this is not to suggest personal shrewdness in observation. It is to question the judgement of communicators indifferent to Saturday's contest in Portland, Oregon between Roy Jones Jnr and Clinton Woods for the undisputed light-heavyweight championship.

From a memory that cannot always be trusted, the apparent hopelessness of Honeyghan's cause did not have a negative effect on press interest back in 1986. Times have changed but it doesn't entirely explain why Woods, a 30-year-old former bouncer from Sheffield feels rejected. The man from The Sun has no difficulty arranging one-to-one interviews with Woods because he is the only British staff reporter out there. Along with one or two other prints I regularly consult in the course of my researches, our Sunday sister carried a preview of the fight but, shamefully to my mind, others chose to ignore it.

Woods has done his best to stimulate interest – the usual spiel about a tough upbringing, an underdog all his career, a chance to make millions and not worry about bills thudding on the doormat, knows he can beat anybody – but not many people have been listening. To its credit, the BBC are putting the fight out live on radio and recording it for Sunday Grandstand. Yet if things go the way of popular prediction, Woods will be swept away by a flood of tedious reaction to the football friendly between England and Portugal.

But what if Woods wins to come home with a title once held by such notable British boxing heroes as Freddie Mills and John Conteh? In March 1973, wearied by months of long-distance travel, I persuaded the Sunday Mirror that a non-title fight between Ali and Ken Norton was not of sufficient importance to justify the cost of sending me to San Diego. Careless in preparation (it later came out that he had not trained at all), Ali lost and had his jaw broken. "Some judge!" I remember the sports editor saying.

Undaunted by this withering setback, I took a similar gamble in February 1990, choosing not to attend Mike Tyson's defence of the heavyweight championship against James "Buster" Douglas in Tokyo. Since it involved also covering the Commonwealth Games in New Zealand, an event I've always been happy to miss, I successfully argued against the assignment. Early in the morning after the fight, I switched on the television to discover that Tyson had been knocked out. Forced to hastily abandon plans for a day at the coast, I spent the next eight hours making telephone calls to Japan. Soon, I was hearing remarks remarkably similar to those expressed by my previous employer.

The feeling held here is that Woods does not have much of a chance against a fighter considered to be the best, pound for pound, presently at work in the ring. But you never know. Back in 1951, nobody gave Turpin a prayer against Robinson. Who gave Hasim Rahman a chance against Lennox Lewis when they met in South Africa last year? From bitter experience it makes sense to be there.