The Eastside Story : Eager to Show That a Westerner Can Handle Himself, an Undefeated Michael Nunn Makes His Initial Foray East

Nobody paid much attention to middleweight Michael Nunn’s arrival in this seaside resort.

For one thing, he pulled up in the midst of a near riot Tuesday night. Hotel and casino workers, locked in a bitter strike with management, were busily bombarding their gaudy workplaces with everything from eggs to rocks and bottles, leaving shattered glass and frightened guests in their wake.

Besides, the sight of arriving fighters is as commonplace in Atlantic City as the sight of departing losers from any of the many casinos along the beach. An average of two fight cards a week are presented here.

And while most boxing fans in the San Fernando Valley might know who Nunn is, in Atlantic City they don’t know the North Hollywood fighter from the Flying Nun.

So, the fighting Nunn quietly made his way through the angry crowd Tuesday without incident. You don’t have to know who he is to sense that this is not the man you want to attack with an egg or anything else.

That was three days ago. The strike has since been settled. The workers are back on the job, the broken glass has been replaced and the egg stains have been washed away.

Now center stage belongs to Nunn and Mike Tinley of Camden, N.J. It’s their chance to turn violent. The two will meet in tonight’s 10-round main event at the Resorts International Hotel-Casino. The fight will be televised by ESPN.

And by the time it’s over, Nunn hopes he finally has the attention of this community. He would like to draw a different sort of crowd prior to his departure--a media crowd.

That’s the reason he’s here. Meeting Tinley (19-3-1, seven knockouts), his handlers feel, is important. Meeting the Eastern media and fight people is just as important.

Nunn, 23, is like a politician who has won some primaries and is ready to test his strength in the general election. He can look back on an amateur career that included a 168-8 record and a berth as an alternate on the 1984 U.S. Olympic squad. As a professional, he is 17-0 with 11 knockouts. He has finally cracked into the elite circle in the World Boxing Assn., rising to the No. 10 spot in the rankings.

But he’s still a relative unknown on the East Coast, and that’s where many of the movers and shakers in the boxing world reside. Ring Magazine, boxing’s major publication, is here. So are the three major networks.

So is New York’s Madison Square Garden, once the Garden of Eden for the fight game. It isn’t that anymore. When they talk about The Garden these days, they are usually referring to the home of the Boston Celtics. Madison Square Garden has lost a lot of business to other fight clubs in the area.

But some of the old-timers who helped run the fight business there, like matchmaker Teddy Brenner, now an employee of promoter Bob Arum, are still around, still insisting that East may be East and West may be West, but in the fight game, one is clearly best until proven otherwise.

“For years, the East has always had the best fighters,” Brenner said. “We’ve always had more fighters to draw on here. There’s Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. Last year, ESPN ran a tournament in seven divisions, East against West. The West didn’t win one. There are just more guys to work with, at least from the middleweight division on up.

“With the Mexican fighters, the West may have better little fighters, going down from the middleweights.”

Frank Gelb, promoter at Atlantic City’s Resorts International, said flatly: “There has never been a good West Coast fighter who could beat a good East Coast fighter.”

Them’s fighting words, and not only for Westerners.

Frankie Polo has been a part of the Atlantic City fight scene, both as a fighter and now a trainer, for 64 years. And he said with conviction: “West Coast fighters are tougher. You hit the son-of-a-bleep and the son-of-a-bleep will hit you right back.”

Said Bill Gallo, veteran writer for the New York Daily News: “It used to be that once a fighter came to the old Garden, the guy was made. Now, you have to have TV exposure. In the old days, a guy would be an instant hit if he came to New York and fought. Now, maybe nobody knows who the hell he is. It’s not the way it used to be here.

“Vegas is the place now, No. 1. They get the really big fights, the heavyweight fights. Madison Square Garden is trying to come back, but it’s not there yet.”

Whatever the reality, the perception of East Coast supremacy is there and must be dealt with by aspiring fighters such as Nunn.

“I think there still is what you would have to call an East Coast media bias,” said Al Bernstein, a commentator on most of ESPN’s national telecasts and a neutral observer from his home in Chicago. “The feeling is, you have to come East to let the media see you. It is an antiquated notion, but it’s there. There is a tendency by Eastern guys to downplay the Western fighters. The feeling is that if they haven’t fought in the East, they haven’t faced true depth. It’s an intangible thing, but there’s some strong reluctance on the part of the, quote, Eastern establishment, unquote, to accept Western fighters. The place to come to fight is either New York or Atlantic City.

“You take a guy like Mike Olajide from Canada. He fights out of New York and he’s in the top 10 in both the WBC and the WBA. What’s the difference between him and Michael Nunn? I don’t know why there should be anything magical about fighting in the East, but there is.

“Nunn has fought nationally on ESPN. He fought Charlie Boston in Las Vegas. What’s the difference if Boston comes out to Vegas or Nunn goes back there to the East Coast to fight? But that Eastern establishment mentality is what he’s dealing with, that fighters in the East are going to beat the best in the West.”

Arum, who currently has Nunn under contract, thinks this is the pivotal fight of Nunn’s young career.

“Most of the media is here,” he said from his New York office. “People want to see him. We want the writers from Philadelphia, New Jersey and one or two from New York to see him. It’s different watching a guy on television as opposed to interviewing him.”

Dan Goossen, Nunn’s manager, agreed.

“This is the grass roots of boxing,” Goossen said. “The nuts and bolts of the sport are here. We want to give Michael some exposure right in the sport’s backyard.”

Nigel Collins works in New York as editor of Ring Magazine and he doesn’t buy any of this Eastern bias stuff.

“No, in a word,” he said when asked about the theory that a big splash on the Eastern seaboard is mandatory for a rising fighter. “What you have to do is look at a list of world champions. Most of them are not even Americans.”

Collins then mentioned one who is, North American Boxing Federation flyweight champ Paul Gonzales of Los Angeles.

“Gonzales,” Collins said, “has never even fought on the East Coast.

“There are two major fight promoters right now--Don King and Bob Arum. Arum recently moved part of his operation to Las Vegas because of the tremendous amount of boxing activity there.”

As for Nunn, Collins doesn’t feel his lack of East Coast exposure is his big problem.

“It certainly wouldn’t hurt him to fight in Atlantic City,” he said, “but his problem is that he’s not an exciting fighter. Have you ever seen his fights?” With that, Collins imitated a man snoring. “He’s been handled very well, he’s got a lot of talent and he’s been moved along very well. As long as he continues to win, he will get his shot. But cuties in the ring don’t draw crowds. That’s his problem, not that he’s from Los Angeles.”

Bernstein doesn’t agree.

“As long as Nunn keeps winning, he’ll get his just desserts,” the sportscaster said. “This fight in Atlantic City is his coming-out party. If he beats Tinley, why not fight a Robbie Sims? There would then be only four or five others ahead of him in the middleweight division, in my opinion.

“If he can knock Tinley out, he will have written his ticket in the middleweight division.”

So there you have it. Ask a question about East vs. West, get an opinion. None of them identical. What does it all mean?

Nunn says he’s not going to worry about it.

“Every time I go out there, I have to prove myself,” he said. “This is just another challenge. As long as they keep doubting me, I’ll have to keep proving myself.”

East is East. West is West.

And tonight, the twain shall finally meet.