if Michael nunn took the rematch with james toney would he have won?

You think Nunn, McCallum - they were the best names other than Toney around in that period, Reggie Johnson, Barkley, charles Williams were rightfully top names themselves.

Eubanks didn't want any part of unification fights, he wanted easy fights and to use boxing to make as much money as possible, he said as much.

 

I think it's equally revisionist to suggest Toney was somehow steadily breaking Nunn down, had a plan all along etc, as it is to say he was being completely dominated.

Nunn was overconfident the whole fight, barely threw any quality punches(as was the case for his last few fights) and started to slow down significantly even before Toney had landed much at all.Toney was also mostly headhunting, trying to take Nunn out with one shot and never set any real groundwork for a "wear him down" kind of stoppage.

He looked to me like he had not trained much and was obviously taking toney very lightly.As my2sense said, he would cockily present himself as a target on the inside(where he was actually getting the better of Toney more often than not) or stand with his arms down inviting Toney to take swipes at him while still in range(which is what got him knocked out..leaving his chin hanging out like giraffe).That's what got him knocked out, not some masterplan from Toney who did his best and was in the fight but losing until the late rounds where the knockdown would have evened things out had he not stopped Nunn.

 

Just rewatched this fight with my girlfriend, without knowing the winner she said in round 10 'He (Nunn) is getting KO'd this round', I told her forgetting about the left hook KD 'Toney is a little right hand happy, if he throws the left hook more it'll open Nunn up more'

Toney was walking Nunn down throughout the fight, slipping Nunns shots, showing better use of distance/timing, making Nunn fight at Toney's prefered range, throwing and landing the much better cleaner punches

I only watched rounds 6-11 but scored it as follows:

R6: Toney close close round, Toney slipped most
R7: Close Toney round
R8: TOney BIG BIG round, gave him a beating
R9: Another big Toney round
R10: Toney nearly stops him
R11: Nunn comes out looking to hold down, drops his right as he was dancing around and gets Ali'd (against Frazier), Girlfriend watches the KO and says 'Our sons are never going to be boxers' I said 'They better not box and leave themselves open like that'

 

Sure he deserves credit.

The only thign i disagree with is any implication he was doing a Chavez or had meant for the fight to go the way it went to a tee.It just seems an over-reaction to the claims Toney was getting dominated and landed one big punch.

I don't agree with your take on the Johnson fight either, i thought that was a close fight where Johnson slowed down eventually and didn't move his hands enough.If Johnson had got the decisiion i don't thnk it would have been a robbery as he won most of the early rounds with a knockdown added in, though Toney edged it imo.It was just as close as the McCallum fights to me.

 

Good stuff Tabin :good

 

My only scoring criteria is weighing up the worth of punches landed to the head and body from both fighters.imo that's all anyone's criteria should be, everything else...who is moving forwards\backwards, being the cutie, throwing more consistent punches as opposed to the other guy picking his spots more...that's all irrelevant and just the means to an end.Get too hung up on all that **** and i thnk you can end up developing too much of a bias for certain styles\ways of fighting htat you like watching the most.

 

You are usually pretty cluey butters and you are probably right about this aswell.

The truth is nearly always somewhere in the middle..I didnt see it as the completley out of left field come from behind knock down that some make out but there were extended periods where he looked lost, even desperate.

I probably have let other examples where Toney has given away early rounds to come on strong late cloud my judgement a little on this one.
But it wasnt as though Toney had been dominated 10 rounds and then he ended it..He was gradually getting on top of Nunn by the end, but as you point out it was nearly as much Nunn's fault as it was Toney's tactics.

 

Prime Nunn was vs Ramos,Watts and such.He moved at all times to the point nobody wanted to see him box.He started trading more to become more fan friendly.But there was a time when his opponents struggled to land more then one punch at a time.By the time of the Tate bout Nunn had become much more aggressive.
Nunn's biggest problem was his outside the ring behaviour.He just couldn't stay focused for whatever reason.By the time of the Toney bout Nunn had started to slip-just look at how many flush shots a totally shot Curry managed to land on Nunn before losing.
Toney's a great fighter but movement always troubled him and a prime Nunn on top of his game was always on the move.Mix that with a southpaw stance and faster hands then Toney and thats too much for Toney.The Reggie Johnson bout should have been a draw-Johnson had a 2 point round and won at least 4 rounds minimum.
The problem is most people never saw Nunn BEFORE he fought Tate.

 

I thought Toney was on his way to getting the KO too a few rounds before he actually got it.

The fight looked to me a bit like Margarito-Cotto in the sense that one guy was scoring more points, but the other guy was doing more damage (albeit perhaps subtly), and that the guy doing the more damage looked like had set up a good chance for himself to win by late-round stoppage if he only could accelerate in the late going.

 

I don't think anybody claimed he did. Toney may not have a great workrate but he's usually strong in the later rounds, he goes to the body etc. I at least stand by my post that he was breaking Nunn down, I wasn't suggesting some masterplan, merely that Toney was doing what he does and over the course of the fight Nunn (despite being ahead on the cards, including mine) was weakening and toney wasn't. As Tabin said, the ko didn't come from nowhere.