Hearns Rejects Offer to Fight Nunn : Arum Says Fighter Spurned $2 Million

Thomas Hearns, the World Boxing Council middleweight champion and the only man to win four world titles, has turned down a $2 million offer to fight unbeaten middleweight Michael Nunn, according to promoter Bob Arum.

“After I made the offer,” Arum said from his Las Vegas headquarters, “I was told that for no money would Thomas Hearns fight Michael Nunn. Tommy always has problems with left-handers.”

That, according to Hearns’ camp, is not the problem.

In Detroit, Prentiss Byrd, vice president of the management group that handles Hearns, said, “First of all, I never heard of it going up to $2 million. As far as I know, it was 1.5 million.

“It doesn’t matter. We want a fight with somebody that makes sense. A fight with Michael Nunn makes no sense. Bob Arum is playing kids’ games with the press. He’s trying to start a newspaper war for this fight with Nunn, but it’s not going to happen. We are basically looking for two guys--Sugar Ray Leonard or Marvin Hagler. Michael Nunn is a good young fighter who is going to go a long way in this business. But what good would it do for us to fight him? Where would it get us?”

According to Arum, Leonard has begun talking about the possibility of a September rematch of his successful blockbuster battle with Hagler last April. Hagler, however, will not talk about any such possibilities until he clears up the marital problems that are now consuming him.

“The fight that would make the most sense is Hearns-Leonard,” Byrd said. “It would make much more money and be much bigger than Hagler-Leonard. But Leonard has played games his whole career and he’s continuing to play them now. He’s yellow. He doesn’t want to fight us.”

But if Leonard fights Hagler, where does that leave Hearns?

“It leaves him no place,” Arum insisted. “He wants to fight nobodies for big money. Or you name somebody like (Mike) McCallum (scheduled to fight World Boxing Assn. champion Sumbu Kalambay next month), he wants $10 million. Or (Frank) Tate (International Boxing Federation champ)? Five million. Hearns is wacky.”

Countered Byrd: “Of course we want as much money as we can get. Thomas Hearns has been a fighter for 11 years, he’s 29 and he wants to get as much as he can, the best situation for him. We are not going to say things just to be unreasonable. McCallum would be most attractive if we can’t get the two guys we want.

“We will fight anybody for the proper dollars. It’s all about public demand, not because a fight would be good for a promoter or for the boxing fraternity. We want to get people who don’t ordinarily go to a boxing match. We can’t get that with Michael Nunn. We don’t see any big interest in him. He would not create that kind of an event.”

Dan Goossen, Nunn’s manager, added his own volley to the semantic slugfest.

“I told Nunn,” Goossen said of the Hearns rejection of his North Hollywood fighter, “that I expected it. Hearns has never been interested in fighting us. The reason? I feel he knows the results. Thomas Hearns wouldn’t want to put everything on the line--his reputation and everything else--against some young, hot property like Nunn. I feel he’s smart not fighting Nunn.

“Hearns is the top middleweight champion today. If the top is reluctant to fight Nunn, we are not too thrilled about the prospect of anyone else standing in line.”

Nunn, 28-0 with 18 knockouts, and Hearns, 45-2 with 38 knockouts, fought on the same night last October in Las Vegas. Hearns knocked out Juan Roldan to win the WBC title that evening. Nunn stopped Darnell Knox to capture the North American Boxing Federation crown. Hearns has not fought since.

Nunn, who easily beat Kevin Watts last month in Reseda, will return to Las Vegas on March 19 to defend his title against Doug DeWitt.

Beyond that?

Arum, who already has reportedly offered Tate more than $300,000 to fight Nunn, has reopened negotiations, hoping to put together a Tate-Nunn IBF title fight for June.

Unless, of course, Hearns changes his opinion that no offer is better than Nunn.