Instead, his early days as a struggling prizefighter are a pop/pulp time capsule into whistle-stop boxing in the late eighties and early nineties. Toney was not an Olympic Trials finalist he did not have 176 amateur bouts nor was he fit to debut at the Showboat Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Unlike Nunn, who fought on national television at the tail end of the eighties boom (Nunn first appeared on NBC in 1986, when he gavotted his way to a decision over Carl Jones), Toney was relegated to the Michigan circuit during the waning days of the Detroit boxing renaissance. Until Toney signed for his title shot against Nunn, he was best known for scoring a narrow decision over rugged Merqui Sosa on ESPN. One of those casualties happened to be Johnny “Ace” Smith, a drug dealer who managed Toney early in his career, gunned down in a drive-by shooting. In 1989 the erstwhile Motor City, probably as famous then for the apocalyptic infernos of Devil’s Night as it was for the Ford Taurus, ranked second in the nation per capita in homicides. Although Toney lived in Ann Arbor, he also spent blue hours roaming Detroit, where, in the mid-eighties and early nineties, life was weighed on the scales of a triple-beam. A lot of talk but on Friday night he has to get in the ring with me.” As far as big cities went, Nunn was only half-right. “The boxers from Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, and places like that always think they are tougher than they are,” Nunn told The Quad-City Times a few days before his dreams would be shattered by an upstart he could never bring himself to respect. And now he was headlining the inaugural pay-per-view produced under the nascent TVKO banner against an unknown whom oddsmakers had installed as a proverbial overlay.īetween profane insults, Nunn also needled Toney based on, of all things, geography. Across the Atlantic, at least, Nunn was safe from catcalls and heckling. His last title defense, against the remnants of ex-welterweight kingpin Donald Curry, took place far away from the American sporting mainstream, in Paris, France. “when he gets hit with a hard punch, he just wants to run.” Against Toney, however, Nunn, oozing arrogance, would unwisely choose to shoot it out.)Įight months later, Nunn followed his close call against Barkley by going twelve excruciating rounds with welterweight titlist Marlon Starling, again lulling his way to a majority decision. (At ringside for Nunn-Barkley sat Roberto Duran, whose opinion of “Second To” was delivered with typical disdain. “Technically, I guess he won,” groused Arum, “but who gives a damn? He’s boring.” He was booed lustily during a listless majority decision over Iran Barkley in August 1989, a fight that left even his promoter, Bob Arum, dispirited. His recent impressive KO run (which included stoppages of Frank Tate, Juan Roldan, and Sumbu Kalambay) was over and, so it seemed, was his peak. The Duke: The Life and Lies of Tommy Morrisonĭespite the undefeated record, despite his standing on P-4-P fantasy lists, despite the championship, Nunn was increasingly being viewed as a disappointment. Once thought to be the heir apparent to Sugar Ray Leonard, whose on-again, off-again Seniors Tour appearances had finally come to a violent end a few months earlier at the hands of Terry Norris, Nunn had seen his star flicker, then dim, like a fluorescent tube on the fritz, since he won the IBF middleweight title in 1987. Who is going to go out with an ugly man like that?” In 1991, however, his grandiosity seemed out of place.
“If you’ve ever seen James Toney,” Nunn said, “you can see why he feels that way.
When told that Toney was quoted as saying he preferred violence over sex, Nunn stepped in with a low blow. With a street-regal air, Nunn belittled Toney every chance he got. A flashy stylist in the ring, Nunn was also a master trash-talker. Certainly not Michael Nunn, the glib IBF middleweight champion with a 36-0 record and five successful title defenses under his belt. Nobody expected James Toney, a 20-1 underdog with a low profile but a perpetual scowl, to win.
#James lights out toney series#
This piece begins a ten-part series looking at the fighters whose stories make Donald McRae’s Dark Trade the enduring classic that it is.
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