In his prime, was Michael Nunn a more talented boxer than Joe Calzaghe?

It was considered a huge upset at the time, and if I remember the attitude of the media at that time seemed indicate that although he lost, it was a mater of time until he either won back the title, or won another title.

I really don't know exactly went wrong with Nunn in that fight either, although I do think Toney started to find his range a bit more and more, as the fight progressed. He didn't show Nunn much respect* and didn't let Nunn get away with his usual showboating much.
Still, without the knockout I'm pretty sure Nunn would have won handsomely on points. although I haven't seen the official scoring at the time of the stoppage.

*Except that one round (I forget which) where Nunn actually had the audacity to tell Toney to stop fighting at one point, and James for a few seconds actually listened.
I forget if Nunn slipped or wanted to clear something out of the ring, but whatever...I found that incident quite amusing.

 

It was a boring fight. I found it easy to score, personally.

 

I thought the action, though not entirely uplifting, wasn't that bad. There were a few clumbsy moments, such as when Nunn stumbled to the canvas as a result of Barkley accidentally stepping on his foot ( or at least I thought it was an accident. )

Even though I gave Nunn the edge, due to the fact that he was a tad busier as well as the defending champ, I think Judge Keith Macdonald's verdict of 114-114 wasn't entirely off the mark.

 

Toney really got into Nunn's head before the fight, as he's done his entire career to other fighters.

Nunn had been in and out of drugs since he was a teen. It was the glamourous 80's and the man definitely fit right into that decade.

 

I agree. A lot of sloppy stuff but that was more due to Barkley really. If I'm remembering correctly Nunn worked off the ropes a lot, Iran landing absolutely nothing serious and Nunn countering.

 

So I've heard, although at the time the press, and by extention the fight public, didn't know about it. I was shocked to see him decline so rapidly as a fighter, although I think we now can attribute that, at least in part, to the drugs.

 

The only part about the Barkley fight I really remember was how slow Iran looked.

 

Meh, who didn't have a problem with the white stuff back then? It's pretty well known Leonard slid into a habit with the stuff too and Duran was into drugs as well. Benitez... ****, the only people who kept clean out of of the Fab Four and Benitez were Hagler and Hearns.

 

To our knowledge

 

Heh, true, true.

Tommy is well known to be so clean it's ridiculous though. He refused to take certain kinds of medication at times because he considered it cheating. I've never seen any cracks in Hearn's stories, ever.

Hagler supposedly drank a bit for a few years after the Leonard fight but I only saw that mentioned in a Sport's Illustrated interview where Hagler was asked and he said he drank in moderation a bit, etc etc. I know when he was actually fighting the man was unbelievably clean.

 

I tried to find the round that you were talking about, didn't have time to go through all the youtube clips. I do however have some recollection of what you're referring to.

Anyway, I decided to refresh my memory of the ending of that match, and reviewed the 10th and 11th rounds. I think we can pretty much rule out exhaustion or disinterest. Nunn was still fairly lively in those last two rounds, and still out moving and outlanding Toney. He basically got caught with a huge left hook at the wrong time, sending him strait to the canvas. He rose completely rattled, and Toney followed up with a terrible barage realing Nunn into the ropes..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNzaenl-FJ0

 

There were rumours of Hagler doing cocaine but nothing came of it, thank God.

 

Post retirement?

 

Thanks for posting that clip Magoo. Wow, this brings back some memories. I had actually forgotten that it was a hometown fight for Nunn.

I laughed at Dan Goosen calling Toney an 'average fighter.' Well, that 'average fighter' went on to do pretty well for himself. :good

 

Sorta. He hadn't actually announced his retirement yet when rumours surfaced, although he had lost to Leonard by then.