BoxRec

Quixall wrote:How good was Michael Nunn ? Should he have been an all time great ?

I was looking at some fights of Michael Nunn last night and he looked like a very good fighter who had a lot of star quality about him. I was sad to hear that he got sent to prison in 2004 and will not be released untill 2024. He was described by one writer as a cross between Pernell Whitaker and Floyd Mayweather and it seemed that his career was going through the roof untill he lost to James Toney in that 11th knock-out. He beat some good fighters along the way, Liles, Kalumbay, Curry, Starling, Barkley and looked set to dominate the middleweight division for years to come. He also won a super-middleweight title against Cordoba, but failed to win a light-heavyweight title and dissapeared from trace towards the end of the 1990's

How good do you think Michael Nunn was ? Was he up there with the very best of his generation ?

loaded_gloves wrote:A very effective boxer, not a fighter, but a very good, very boring pure boxer.

He was criticised in the press at the time quite a bit because of his mainly passive performances, particularly vs Barkley. I think a lot of people were happy when Toney whacked him and got rid of him. He went to the Don King stable and picked another belt but boxed on undercards and never featured in any major fights again.

No one seemed to give a shit about him once he lost to Toney, mainly due to his dull style when there were so many exciting fighters in the late 80s/90s.

MachoMan09 wrote:Michael Nunn was too good.

Quixall wrote:

loaded_gloves wrote:A very effective boxer, not a fighter, but a very good, very boring pure boxer.

He was criticised in the press at the time quite a bit because of his mainly passive performances, particularly vs Barkley. I think a lot of people were happy when Toney whacked him and got rid of him. He went to the Don King stable and picked another belt but boxed on undercards and never featured in any major fights again.

No one seemed to give a shit about him once he lost to Toney, mainly due to his dull style when there were so many exciting fighters in the late 80s/90s.

Yeah, from what i can gather, he just dropped from the major scene after the Toney loss. Maybe people put up with the supposed boring style whilst ever they thought he was some boxing genius and future hall of famer, but it seems that the Toney loss did a lot of damage, rightly or wrongly, to his fighting career.

Quixall wrote:Toney was well behind when he delivered that knock out punch to Nunn. The punch thrown by Toney was similar in it's effect to the punch that Nunn threw to knock out Kalambay !!

Jon Saxon wrote:

Quixall wrote:Toney was well behind when he delivered that knock out punch to Nunn. The punch thrown by Toney was similar in it's effect to the punch that Nunn threw to knock out Kalambay !!

That isn't strictly true, he was traiing but he had been shipping away all night and had missed with that punch by a whisker numerous times.

I saw it coming pity Nunn didnt.

Counter-puncher wrote:

Jon Saxon wrote:

Quixall wrote:Toney was well behind when he delivered that knock out punch to Nunn. The punch thrown by Toney was similar in it's effect to the punch that Nunn threw to knock out Kalambay !!

That isn't strictly true, he was traiing but he had been shipping away all night and had missed with that punch by a whisker numerous times.

I saw it coming pity Nunn didnt.

agreed John, too much gets made of the 'come from behind' nature of that win. I know Terry D agrees with us here. Toney was pressuring, working the body well, and looking to time Nunn with big shots all night. eventually he got him, but this was (11th round) after in both 9th and 10th rounds Toney had got to Nunn and wobbled his legs.

i also agree with macho, Nunn had ridiculous physical gifts. men that big and fast and fluid are very few and far between in boxing history.

Counter-puncher wrote:sometimes one guy winning 3 big rounds in a row is much more significant than his oppo winning the previous 6 rounds unemphatically.

in long fights momentum can often be more important than rounds won, this fight being a great example.

jamesmcdonnell wrote:

Counter-puncher wrote:sometimes one guy winning 3 big rounds in a row is much more significant than his oppo winning the previous 6 rounds unemphatically.

in long fights momentum can often be more important than rounds won, this fight being a great example.

My point is that Nunn was outboxing Toney for long stretches of the fight, that's not something many other fighters can claim to have done to a prime JT......