Nunn was reduced to the most feeble looking pitty pat flurries that have ever been thrown in a boxing ring against Rocchigiani.The fight wasn't remotely close and Nunn got picked off like the sad,pitiful,grossly overrated junkie that he always was.
I watched it on youtube and although the quality isn't great and you can't see whether everything is landing, Nunn didn't do enough to win in my estimation. 117-112 is about right. Here is a good old SI article on Nunn: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1068409/1/index.htm He was pressured by his management to become more of a puncher. While I can certainly understand that from a marketability standpoint, I love to watch his movement and defensive skills. Same reason I loved Pea Whitaker.
You should have seen Nunn before the Tate fight-he was almost unhittable.I remember his fight vs Alex Ramos and I don't think Ramos landed a flush shot the entire 12 rounds. Check out his fight with Kevin Watts-I don't think Watts landed one shot on Nunn.
Roldan was a guy on the way down himself, at that point in time. Talk about a guy made to order for the better version of Nunn, this is the guy. Roldan stayed in there and was throwing big shots much much longer than he should have, and he should not have been in there that late. The Nunn of 3 or 4 years prior would not have been hit by 5 punches a round by such a crude wide swinger. But no legs and no turning or any of the skills he showed earlier and here was an opponent that fought like he was on railroad tracks. 1 way only at 1 speed and not multi-dimensional. But the slugger version of Nunn was fighting the guy & lots more holes in his game were visable. Much more vulnerable that the guy that was impossible to hit.
The early domination gave Nunn licence to fight more flatfooted. Yes Roldan had seen better days, but he was still no mug, and was never any threat to Nunn, who pretty much did whatever he wanted in there. I thought it was an excellent performance, the sort of performance that was needed when he fought Barkley.
Yes, Nunn was just super confident in that period. Although Roldan was past his best, it still took Hearns' right hand, four rounds, to crack open the chin, not to mention the customary (for the period) wobble or two for Tommy.
odd career. A little like Tyson in that they both were great for a short short time, and then started to decline in skills. The 1988-1990 Nunn would have been hard to beat for anyone.
Nunn like Kalambay and McCallum was unlucky he didn't get a shot at the previous champions and established greats in Hagler, Hearns and Leonard. A win over such an established great would have put his legacy up several places in the MW division. He was also unlucky he was in such a deep era and had a great fighter like Toney to dethrone him. He probably would have matched up much better against McCallum than he did Toney. Still what wasn't unlucky was him not maintaining his training which saw his athletic ability and skills diminish Nunn got worse as he aged and as he went up in weight his physical advantages weren't quite as. Still he has technical weaknesses, as a tall boxer he gives up his height quite easily, he never really got the jab and 1-2 working as much as you'd like to see a man with such height/reach. His defense was often reaction based, he kept his chin too high, often dropped his hands - which he got away with because of his rangyness To his credit, he is 1 of the best P4P athletes ever at his best, a huge MW and fast. His hooks and uppercuts are unusually impressive for a man his size Still Nunn is an immense physical talent at MW and I think he could beat some ATGs
I'll disagree on just a couple points. The first is Toney's style, it was perfect for Nunn. Toney always struggled with movers of which Nunn was one at that point in his career. Nunn was dominating that fight until he got caught in the late-middle rounds. That night wasn't even Nunn in his prime. Secondly, he didn't give his height as easily early in his career and utilized the jab very effectively. It wasn't until he was encouraged to start punching harder and began to get lazy that he languished. Nunn at his best was a sweet boxer/mover of an Ali style.