James Toney vs Michael Nunn

Well, yeah, .. I didn't know that had been done ...

 

I have to agree with you, I don't want to because I loved Nunn :!:

but yeah, what a fight from Toney :thumbsup

 

In some cases, so would I.
Roldan had quite recently been a universally recognized middleweight contender and had only lost to Hearns and Hagler while he was ranked. His win over Kinchen was just 18 months earlier, one of his best wins.
Yes, clearly "former" but not horribly so.

You're right, it's swings and roundabouts.

 

So a former middle-weight title contender who gave Hagler a very tough fight and almost stopped Hearns is a lesser contender than a short blown-up middleweight? Not buying it, but to each his own, I guess.

BTW, did you block my comments after I pointed out the race/Marciano stuff? (testing)

 

Nunn apparently started snorting cocaine a lot post-Kalambay, though.

 

Barkley didn't really look that good, true, but Nunn took so much time off in so many rounds that Barkley might just have earned a draw with his persistence.

Yes, he probably handled Roldan better than Hagler did, but it was also a much more shopworn version of Roldan. My problem with that performance is also that Nunn took so much time off.

Against Toney he was made to work every minute of every round, and therefore started to tire earlier than in other fights, letting Toney get close enough to expose his defensive flaws. That's much more straightforward to me than that he perhaps (according to whom?) slacked off in training.

 

I've watched both fights too and completely disagree. Starling was no middleweight and had no business fighting a top middleweight. Roldan looked terrible in large part because Nunn was a nightmare matchup for him.

 

The logical flaws in your reasoning that Starling was a better middleweight than Roldan because he gave Nunn a closer fight than Roldan should be obvious and probably don't need belaboring. Styles make fights, etc. etc. and Nunn, a notorious partier and admitted cocaine abuser, clearly peaked in 1988, and became significantly less dominant and less consistent shortly afterwards. Anyone who's watched Nunn's fights can see the difference between the version of Nunn who fought Tate and Roldan, and the version who fought Starling, Toney, and various mediocre opponents at 168. Way less movement, way less effective countering.

 

And you do realize that Starling never had any real fights at junior-middleweight let alone middleweight before Nunn, right? Any version of Roldan would have run through him like a bull on the Pampas.

 

one overlooked fact is Bob Arum pressuring Nunn to be more aggressive and crowd pleasing after being boo'd out the joint against Iran

 

Arum threated Nunn that his new protege Benn would get the big fights and big money if Nunn didnt stop 'moonwalking', thus he changed his moving style more and more til he basically stood right in front of Toney right through ;against Tate he did not stay in one spot once hardly..