James Toney vs Michael Nunn

I agree with your excellent breakdown but I can't help but feel that Nunn made things more difficult for himself than necessary in that fight. Where was the footspeed and movement that he showed in some of his most dominant performances? Taking nothing away from Toney's excellent, sharp performance but I always felt that Nunn would have won if he'd fought a smarter fight.

 

Toney was still green so that must be kept in mind, and this was his first championship fight. But at times Nunn made him look extremely ordinary. It shows just how good Nunn could be when he was on. I think at this time Mike was already cutting corners with his training.

But as said, credit must be given to Toney for hanging in there and starting to make inroads as the fight progressed. He didn't let Nunn get away with some of the things he had been getting away with in the past.

Even so, for me the first knockdown came as a surprise. Toney was in the ascendency but still behind on the cards, and all of a sudden he just flattens Nunn with a great left hook. It came as a real surprise to me.
I have to wonder if a fully fit and motivated, hungry Nunn loses to Toney, this green version especially. But that's neither here nor there. James took his chance with both hands.

 

I had it 6-4 for Nunn.

It was not a lucky punch by no means. Toney broke him down with body shots and counter rights.

Great fight by both guys.

 

Nunn had picked imaginary fleas of Toney's head at the weigh-in, he must have been under the impression Toney was just another run-of-the-mill guy who'd never be heard of again.

Nunn was clearly up on points, but was being made to work the entire time, and couldn't handle the pressure for 36 minutes. Toney really was wonderful at his best. Toney mentioning by name in his post-fight interview a disabled little girl who absolutely loved him was something I'll never forget either.

 

Nunn was an unbelievable talent, his performances against Tate, Roldan, Kalambay, Curry and Toney were about as good as it gets (including Sugar Ray Robinson and Roy Jones Jr), literally.

 

:good:good

Nunn made Toney look like a novice for a lot of that fight. And I am a huge fan of Toney.

Nunn was awesome. One of the best I've ever seen!

 

I remember punch stats being off for this fight. Nunn had a high connect rate (I think up to 50 %.) However, to the educated eye, it was obvious that Toney slipped a ton of punches of Nunn.

 

Agreed . i think the Nunn victory is probably Toney's carreer best win.

In my view, Toney could have easily won 1-2 rounds before the 8th round.

To beat Jones I think you need a good jab.Tomey did mot make effective use of the of the jab against the southpaw Nunn and had not a jab which was that effective.He was aggressive against Nunn though if that is what you mean.

 

I disagree on the jab thing to beat Roy Jr.

Back in the day I coached amateurs here in the South -- this was after RJJ was a pro, but Roy Sr. would bring fighters to the same competitions that we went to ... and I spent a lot of time studying his style.

Turns out, the Roy Sr. method relied very heavily on slipping and countering the other guy's jab -- almost all of their club's offense was generated off dipping left or right at the waist, just slightly off center, as the jab was coming, and making the jabber overextend and then countering off of it.

We developed a strategy for fighting his guys that was very effective -- feint the jab and then throw the right or the hook to whichever side they dipped (it was more of a tilt, if that makes any sense), or occassionally feinting the jab up the middle and then double jabbing to whichever side they slipped.

The first big win our little, new-to-the-game club got was when I put in a rough, raw heavyweight in with "Roy Jones Senior's New Heavyweight." These were novices, but his guy had knocked out six or eight guys in a row and nobody would fight him. My guy was like 4-0 or 5-0 but had maybe one knockout and was just a tall, tough country boy without a lot of skill or finesse. They called and asked if we'd match with him and were shocked when I said absolutely we'd take it, just tell us when and where.

So we show up and Roy Sr's guy has on shiny, fancy trunks and jersey and like a little entourage of yapping dogs following him around. My guy has very basic stuff, same as he'd worn to every fight. It looks like a mismatch ... and it was. My guy bumfuzzled him using the strategy I described above -- feint the jab, potshot one punch, step to the side; then do it again. We won every minute of all three rounds handily.

At this time, because of RJJ's Olympic success and early success in the pros, everyone was kind of intimidated by guys from that gym, so it was a pretty big deal.

Never saw "Roy Senior's New Heavyweight" again, haha. He also had a really accomplished open division lightweight with about 100-150 fights that we ran into in the Golden Gloves ... actually, another boxer's coach wasn't able to make it and he asked me to work the corner because he had seen that we had managed some success aginst the Pensacola crew.

Same strategy -- and this guy I'm with who maybe 30 fights (and mixed results) who happened to have a very nice straight right (lanky guy like Roger Mayweather) knocked him cold loading up on that right the very first time he threw it off the jab-feint.

Now I fully realize RJJ was more advanced, had more physical skills and had learned more than just what his father had taught him, but I still think until he began to lose his reflexes that he absolutley ate jabbers alive.

Sorry for the off-topic post in reply to this, but just to steer things back I have to say Toney was one of my favorite fighters from that time and his win over Nunn -- a very underrated guy in retrospect -- was massive at that time and still stands as one of Toney's best wins.

 

Interesting post.I said it cause Johnson and Tarver had a decent jab.But as you pointed out that was not prime Roy Jones .

 

Haven't seen Nunn-Starling but agree with the rest.

Nunn looked excellent against Tate and the Kalambay KO is a classic, but I don't see an ATG fighter in him against Barkley, Curry, Roldan and Toney.

I only had Nunn up by 2 rds at best at the time of the stoppage, and all the talk about his lacking dedication in training aside I never thought he showed he could keep the pace he kept for the first 6 against Toney over a whole fight.