How big an underachiever do you consider Michael Nunn to be?

The biggest underachiever of all time after Dmitry Pirog. With the skills he possessed he could've been a light heavyweight champion if he bulked up with modern steroids

 

He was extremely skilled, but I don't think you can call a guy whose career got derailed by injuries an underachiever. I maintain that his knockout of Jacobs was one of the prettiest in all of boxing history. The feints and shifts to set up that right hand were ridiculous.

 

He was just overrated. He was never as good as people like to think he was.

 

It's hard to say TBH.

He had a short but very good run of form starting from destroying a very tough contender in Curtis Parker.

A stand out victory over Frank Tate arguably his best performance.

Beating Juan Roldan alot easier than Hearns did.

And of course the stunning 1 punch knockout of Sumbu Kalambay.

But then after that he was looking very ordinary vs Marlon Starling a fighter who'd spent his whole career at Welterweight and moved up 2 weightlcasses to fight Nunn. I know Starling is a very tricky fighter but Nunn should've looked better against a Welterweight moving up 2 weightclasses especially with the size difference.

Nunn also didn't look great vs Iran Barkley but Barkley is a tough nut who went on to beat Hearns again so i can overlook that somewhat.

Then of course the stoppage loss to Toney in which i thought Nunn looked better than he had in his last 2 previous fights. And he boxed a brilliant fight for 8 rounds or so until Toney started to break him down and then scored with that amazing left hook in the 11th round.

I don't think that's a bad loss for Nunn he just lost to a great fighter in his prime who was a bit better on the night.

The question is was Nunn's 2 year peak a little bit overstated ?

The Frank Tate performance was very good but Tate wasn't an upper echelon fighter.

Sumbu Kalambay i consider to be one of the best Middleweights of the last 50 years so that knockout was stunning to me. But i also think it was a bit of a freak occurrence meaning that they could fight another 10 times and that probably wouldn't happen again.

Overall do i think Nunn underachieved a bit ? maybe somewhat but the loss to Toney wasn't him underachieving he just lost to a great fighter.

It's also hard to say someone underachieved when he won 6 Middleweight title fights making multiple lineal defences.

Not to mention he won 5 world title fights at Super Middleweight.

So that's 11 world title wins overall along with his lineal Middleweight title defences.

So that's still a very good career.

Had he stayed at Middleweight you had a young RJJ waiting in the wings who i don't think Nunn would beat.

You also had very dangerous knockout artists like Julian Jackson, Gerald McClellan.

And having your hands down relying on your reflexes against bombers like those two would be a dangerous way to fight them. Case in point look what happened to Graham against Jackson another Southpaw who relied on his reflexes.

So when you take everything into account maybe he isn't quite the underachiever that you may think.

 

Well said.

The one that really started that downhill subtraction---to me anyway--was Iran Barkley.

To me, back then Iran was made to order for the guy and was considered a soft defense. That Barkley defense was going to see him hit a ton. Especially with a southpaw boxer like that. And Iran had already had a ton of tough bouts by that point in time.

And just who thought Barkley was going to be landing his wide hooks on the guy. Or be able to hold up for 15 rounds?

Now maybe Nunn did bring his B game into the ring that night. But we did see that the Nunn B game was hardly a Holmes B game. And there was a push attempting to nominate Michael as the newest great fighter. But the greats always have that top notch B game and we say that /michael nunn did not have that particular skill.

 

Solid post. I always admired his middleweight run. When you take a step back and look at that run of title defences, it is made up of very tricky guys to fight one after and other. There was not a safe fight in that group.

 

I am guessing his underachieving and decline had something to do with the white powder that ended up sending him to prison for 15 years. I doubt the time in which he got caught was his first time. It was likely a habit that had developed over time once he became champ and had the money for that expensive habit. Coke has ruined a lot of good fighters. Such as my boy, Smokin' Bert Cooper.

 

I think he both underachieved and had his potential overrated as well. I think that's a balanced position. He went off the boil pretty quickly and didn't seem to ever develop or get better.

I do agree with Smokin Bert above, i feel like it's highly likely he was dabbling in coke during his title reign.

 

After Kalambay the magazines had him anointed as the next megastar. Then he started fighting welterweights and underachieving. Then he lost to Toney, and that was all.

 

Nunn was insanely talented and unfortunately he was too good for his own good.
He was so hard to hit flush that at times it seemed unfair.
I remember watching him vs Alex Ramos and Ramos was pretty accomplished as a pro but Ramos couldn't touch Nunn for 12 rounds.
But TV producer complained that Nunn was "too boring " and needed to be more aggressive.
So Nunn tried to be more aggressive vs Kronk Middleweight Knox and he stopped him in 4 rounds.
But to me he was sloppy getting hit with shots he normally would have avoided.
Kevin Watts gave everyone problems. Nunn toyed with him for 12 rounds.
Nunn literally outclassed Tate in a complete boxing masterpiece.
The Barkley bout Nunn never even took it out of 2nd appearing disinterested at times and still won pretty easily. People like to pretend how close it was and it wasn't. Barkley threw 980 punches and landed just 245_punches.
Nunn threw 689 but landed 346.
But this was the future Nunn- just doing enough to win and not fighting to his potential at all.
Lets remember that Nunn was freaking 58-4 with two of those losses by split decision although I thought Cordoba beat Nunn the first time.

 

The thing is some guys like Hopkins, Hagler and Mayweather are gymrats. The first 2 aren't as talented as Nunn but they got every drop out of their potential showing up with perfect stamina levels. I think Nunn had enough stamina early in his career but he didn't maintain it. He also lacked foundamentals that maybe could have plastered over him not showing up at 100%

 

Well, he just drew with Hopkins in the middleweight contest so its clear that he's rated highly in these parts. He probably tired Hopkins out so much that Marshall has a chance.

 

Excellent post.

I dont see much wrong with Nunn at middleweight. The summer of 1989 when he sacked Bob Surkein who had a lot of friends in the boxing media cabal is when the press turned against him and started talking him down. I felt the criticism after the Barkley fight was insane. Iran was on a run if wins over Olajide,Hearns and the razor thin loss to Duran.

Nunn lost out on a fight with SRL,or Hearns or Duran and I think that hurt him he wasn't as motivated after.


Starling was a formidable welterweight at the peak of his powers and Nunn outpointed hum. He did look poor versus Curry for 8 rounds.

But ultimately the losses in the 90s mean he's an underachiever. No one knew how good Toney was and he didnt demand a rematch.He lost to Liles and Little and l Rocchigiani and ost the momentum he would build in between. Benn,Eubank and even Jones jnr really didn't want to fight him. His long career in the 90s meandered on until his shocking arrest and retirement.

Am underachiever but a formidable middleweight who does well in h2h matches.

 

Hagler was every bit as talented as Nunn with a drive to match it.
Hagler,especially early on was quite the boxer and could do it from both sides.