Having rewatched some of his better fights last night, I was wondering what the Classic's opinions were regarding Nunn and his short stay at the top. In terms of his ability, there were things I liked about Nunn, and there were also things I disliked. What I liked about him, especially during his peak days, was his tendency to go to the body. Nunn really knew how to commit and put leverage into his body shots. The jab was also a key figure in any Nunn fight, working more as a range finder than a scoring punch, but it was effective for him. Fast hands, fast feet - Nunn relied on his reflexes and upperbody movement to avoid incoming punches. Perhaps not ideal, but he got away with it more often than not. On the flipside, the main weakness that springs to mind was his willingness to engage. There were periods in his fights with Roldan and Tate where he seemed content to lay on inside and bang with his opponent, even though it was obvious he was better suited to boxing on the outside. You look at his fights with Barkley and Curry, two below-par showings, and Nunn would also showboat. This saw him get hit with shots he shouldn't have been hit with. This could even lose him rounds in some cases. Some have suggested the Goosen's encouraged Nunn to engage more so he'd become more marketable, but his trainers were yelling "box, Mike! Move!" I'm not certain Nunn would have stayed at the top for much longer even if he had gotten past Toney. His performances were already dropping by that point. Showboating, laziness, and Nunn was no Jones Jr in terms of speed and reflexes. He was no slouch, but Nunn could get tagged and this would spell bad trouble against the better fighters in the division, much like it did against James Toney. Opinions on Michael Nunn?
Micheal should of been second to none of all his peers, but Crack is one hell of a drug... Truthfully, I honestly thought post Tate, he was the heir apparent to Leonard, but then The Blade comes along and ruins him.
Nunn was a exellent fighter, who's underrated somewhat these days. He wasn't great but he was very good with a lot of character flaws. It's a shame what happened with him because i think he would've beat the likes of Benn, Jackson et al.
Perhaps he would've had a chance if he caught Jones struggling at the weight and he was good against technical fighters, so a McCallum fight would've been very competitive, but they would've both been favourites against him. I see McCallum/Nunn as a bit of a McGirt/Whitaker type of fight. Highly technical, close and combative with the snatcher winning it going away. Nunn was a partly animal and always had that fragility about him even when he was dominating. He had a highly strung temperament which caused him to fight with anxiety and that's why he had that disposition of not being able to fight a complete fight in big match-ups. He was giving James Toney the business before he got careless and got walked down. I was always a fan of Nunns though, he was a very likeable character. He had that ability to be in the modern 4 horsemen, then he would look like a polished Jermaine Taylor. I remember watching the Iceman Scully fight, a fight in which Nunn showed for virtually the first time that he could box backwards from a pressure fighter. I remember saying, "where was that in the Toney fight late when Toney was stalking and Nunn stayed in the pocket, traded and eventually got put into Ambien land". My ole man once said to me that Nunn had that look of an honest crook about him, which i find to be a good description of his style actually. Don't know whether that's what my pops meant or not though, LOL!
At the time none of the major names in the SMW division were kicking down Nunn's door for a fight. I think Eubank even said he was not particularly interested. Because he was basically too good What the hell ever possessed him to get into the drug caper in such a major way is beyond me :huh Oh yeah I nearly forgot the old cliche of boxer makes millions from fighting, blows it all, needs money
The Nunn that beat Tate would have given ANY middleweight in history a run for their money. And I mean that.
He's completely overrated considering what he actually achieved. Yeah, he looked great, but bar Kalambay (incredible but not indictative of either fighter) he was a letdown. If he'd stayed dedicated he could've done so much more, on his best night a lovely fighter to watch. I gave Starling 4 rounds against him FFS Bar that incredible punch, Sumbu was the far better, far more accomplished fighter.
Nunn was paradoxically an underachiever yet now overrated on the whole. He was super talented, and I was certainly convinced of his qualities after his run of victories over Tate, Roldan, Kalamby, Barkley, Starling and Curry. In hindsight, the Barkley fight showed some of his limitations prior to Toney. But the fact remains he was beating Toney nearly as (if not more) convincingly than RJJ did prior to the KO. It was one of those nights, and the mix of losing his aura of invincibility with his then well documented personal problems never really allowed him to recover. If I remember correctly, he was involved with drugs throughout his career which leads me to ponder just how seriously he was taking boxing anyway? It's not beyond the realms of possibility he had the tools to beat the green RJJ had he coasted against Toney in the last few rounds.
It reads better on my display. I'm not sure. Nunn's fight with Tate was one of the fights I watched, and I think the level of his performance has been overstated somewhat. Tate was landing in close and catching Nunn in nearly all of the rounds, but this good work seemed to go unnoticed by the commentary team. Don't get me wrong, it was a very good performance, but how good was Tate? I think he won at least two of the rounds. Nunn also showed up against Tate and Toney. James Toney actually needed a knockout to win by the 11th round, at least according to the three judges who were scoring the fight. I don't think Nunn has a particuarly bad resume considering how short his stay at the top was. He fought and defeated the likes of Frank Tate, Juan Roldan, Sumbu Kalambay, and Iran Barkley in the space of 12 months. Had he seen out the last two rounds against Toney then Nunn would have sported quite the resume. Nunn can be criticised for falling short but he fought some very tough opponents. Cool. Jones handled Toney far easier than Nunn did, GDG.
He looked terrible in those last 3, more due to out of the ring issues and lack of dedication and quality effort than anything. That is not even remotely accurate. That's the crux of it. You really think a fight would've come off at that time?