Duarte, Nunn Get Out Knocks Early in Tuneup Fights

Middleweight Michael Nunn and bantamweight Frankie Duarte came to Reseda’s Country Club Tuesday night, each in search of a tuneup.

As it turned out, they could have stayed in the gym and gotten a better tuneup by sparring.

Or by going to their local service station.

Nunn’s opponent, Alvaro Granillo of Mexicali, Mexico, lasted just 1:55 into the second round of a scheduled 10-rounder before the fight was stopped before serious damage could be inflicted.

That was longer than Pedro Gonzalez survived. He hit the floor for the third and final time at 2:55 of the first round of his scheduled 10-rounder against Duarte.

Granillo (16-9) was a last-minute substitute for Oscar Saucedo, who pulled out of the Nunn fight several days ago.

Sending Granillo in with just a few days’ preparation against Nunn (12-0 with nine knockouts) was tantamount to pulling a guy off Bourbon Street last Sunday morning and sending him in to block against the Chicago Bears’ defensive line.

Granillo had about the same chance.

But Nunn, who has a February fight at the Forum and a March date in Las Vegas, was taking no chances.

“I didn’t know nothing about him,” said Nunn, who is managed by Ten Goose Boxing of North Hollywood. “So, I used the first round to just loosen up, then picked up the pace in the second round to see what he had.”

Not much.

Although there were no knockdowns, Granillo was clearly defenseless when the bout was stopped.

Duarte (37-6-1 with 27 knockouts), another Ten Goose fighter, has boxed a total of just nine rounds in the last nine months and is entering a bantamweight tournament at the Forum beginning in March.

But he didn’t get much work against Gonzalez (14-5), who spent most of his lone round against Duarte either on the canvas or heading in that direction.

Duarte put him down the first time with a straight right midway through the first round. He followed that up with a flurry that resulted in knockdown No. 2. A left-right combination finished Gonzalez’ evening.

The night’s first preliminary bout was a battle between cruiserweights Charlie James of Los Angeles and David Graves of San Diego.

Except Graves didn’t know it until around noon Tuesday. That was when the weigh-in was scheduled, a weigh-in at which Ron Richardson, James’ scheduled opponent, failed to show.

Graves filled in and brought a shudder to every trainer who has ever stressed the importance of preparation as he knocked James out at 1:50 of the third round of their scheduled four-rounder, giving him his second professional win in as many tries.

James is 0-2, his only other fight coming in 1979, after which he retired for nearly seven years. Tuesday night was hardly worth the wait.

In other preliminary fights, Eddie Rodrigues (11-1) of San Jose won an unanimous six-round decision over Fidel Bracena of Eagle Rock (2-2) in a battle of bantamweights; Manny Olivas (7-2) of Ten Goose took a unanimous six-round decision over Arturo Rodriguez (5-2) of San Diego in another matchup of bantamweights; Rocky Cazares (2-0) of San Diego was a unanimous winner over Marvin Jenkins (1-1) of Los Angeles in a four-round lightweight bout and Greg Puente (4-0-2) of El Monte stopped Rocky Murphy (0-4) of San Diego in the first round of their scheduled four-round featherweight match.