Advertisement

NUNN FOR THE MONEY : IBF Middleweight Champion With Celebrity Following to Battle Italy’s Kalambay for $1.1 Million Purse

Share
Times Staff Writer

In distance, Johnny Tocco’s gym is just two miles off the Las Vegas Strip. But in mood, it might as well be two light years away.

No gaudy lights here. No clanging of slot machines.

Just the dull thud of fist on punching bag in a softly lit room dominated by a ring.

The smell of sweat fills the air and fight posters fill the walls, mute testimony to the many past greats who have toiled here.

One of the greats of the present, International Boxing Federation middleweight champion Michael Nunn, has been working here this week, moving around the ring under the admiring gaze of his Ten Goose Boxing Club handlers--his manager, trainer, adviser and publicist--and a seemingly unassuming middle-aged man, casually dressed in shirt, slacks and tennis shoes, who looks excited merely to be here.

Advertisement

Just another fan?

Well, yes and no. A fan he is, but Gene Hackman is not just another anything. Already an Academy Award winner, Hackman is facing another Oscar showdown for Best Actor on Wednesday with Dustin Hoffman, a battle of Hollywood heavyweights, but that seems to be the last thing on his mind.

He has chosen to spend all of pre-Oscar week by the side of his favorite fighter as Nunn prepares to defend his title at the Las Vegas Hilton tonight against Sumbu Kalambay of Italy.

Hackman isn’t the first actor to sit ringside for a fight, but when you see him sitting ringside while Nunn jumps rope, does stretching exercises and shadow boxes, you realize we’re talking hard-core fan here.

“I saw Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, as an amateur,” said Hackman, his arms leaning on the ropes, his eyes on Nunn, “and this guy reminds me of him. He moves so well. He’s a great athlete, but also a real dancer. A phenomenon.

“I can relate to what he does because there are similarities to what I do for a living. The real champions have a sense of performance. They can rise to the moment, get the adrenaline flowing and perform. The difference is, they do it out of instinct. Actors have to be taught to do it.”

Hackman seemed almost embarrassed about his fascination with Nunn in particular and boxing in general.

Advertisement

“Sometimes I’m appalled at how much I like boxing,” he said. “I guess we all are.”

Hackman is only one of the actors in Nunn’s corner. Mr. T is a fan. So are Michael J. Fox, James Caan and Victor French, the first of Nunn’s celebrity supporters.

Nunn’s image has become irreparably linked with these stars. He lives in North Hollywood, but the prefight ads call him Hollywood’s Michael Nunn. He lives in a new condominium, drives a Mercedes recently given to him by promoter Bob Arum and will receive his first seven-figure purse tonight, earning $1.1 million for the Kalambay fight.

A national boxing magazine made Nunn its cover boy this month and called him “pound for pound the best fighter in the world,” a description reserved for years for Sugar Ray Robinson.

Michael Nunn, you’ve come a long way, baby.

A journey of a thousand miles, Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu said, must begin with a single step.

But in Nunn’s case, his journey to fame and fortune began with a couple of missteps.

The product of a poor neighborhood in Davenport, Iowa, Nunn found solace in the ring, away from the rough crowd he ran with.

He concluded a brilliant amateur career (168-8 with 75 knockouts, two Junior Olympic titles and a second-place finish in the national Golden Gloves) in the 1984 Olympic Trials.

Advertisement

Nunn failed to make the U. S. team, winding up as an alternate when he lost to Virgil Hill.

So where did that leave him? The next logical step would be to turn pro.

But Nunn thought that it might be a misstep.

He returned home and met with Bob Surkein, a former head of the Amateur Boxing Federation, a longtime amateur referee, and, as a Davenport resident, the man who had seen the potential in Nunn back when he started boxing at 13.

“When I first spotted him,” Surkein said, “I saw the new Cassius Clay-the speed, the reflexes, the infectious grin. He moved beautifully and he just looked like an athlete.”

After Nunn lost in the Olympic Trials, he came to see Surkein.

“What are you going to do now?” Surkein asked.

“Well,” Nunn replied, “I’m going to hang around Davenport and get a job.”

Surkein just shook his head.

“What do you mean, ‘Get a job?’ ” he said. “Doing what? Selling drugs? Robbing banks? Mugging old ladies? Look, when you’re ready to turn pro, I’ll put you in with the right people and they’ll look out for you.”

Nunn wasn’t convinced.

“As a kid,” he said, “I fought because I was good. I never did it looking to a professional career. I just did it to pass the time and keep out of trouble.

“After the Trials, I had a lot of people telling me, ‘Why don’t you box as a pro?’ I said, ‘I don’t want to do that.’ They said, ‘Man, you just going to sit around here and do nothing?’ I said, ‘I guess so.’ ”

Advertisement

And he did. But not for long.

“Well, Mike,” Surkein once said when Nunn dropped by for a visit, “there are no jobs here in the community. The only thing you can do is get into trouble. You have got two options: Stay around here and take a chance on going to the penitentiary. Or pursue a boxing career.”

Surkein made an offer. “Look, Mike, what’s three years? Give me your best for three years,” he said. “By that time, we’ll know where you’re going.”

Which was more, Nunn conceded to himself, than he knew at the time.

“I got to thinking,” he said. “What the hell. What’s three years? I’m still young. I wasn’t but 21 at the time. . . . Why not go for it?”

Having decided on a course, Nunn needed a starting point.

Surkein had met Dan Goossen at the Trials and was impressed. The North Hollywood salesman was struggling to start a boxing operation in North Hollywood with the help of some of his nine brothers and sisters.

“I was looking for more than just a business arrangement for Mike,” Surkein said. “I wanted people who would make him the star of their stable. I saw closeness in the Goossen family and I saw evidence of people willing to try.”

Surkein and Nunn flew out to the Valley, checked out the Goossens’ makeshift gym on a North Hollywood cul-de-sac, and decided to go for it.

Advertisement

At least Surkein did.

Returning to Davenport to pack, Nunn still had doubts about leaping into this strange new world.

“Michael didn’t have confidence in himself,” Surkein said. “He was afraid to move out on his own to an area he had never been to in his life. It was a big change and he was scared.

“But he couldn’t stay in Davenport and train. There were not enough sparring partners. And he didn’t train hard enough there. I used to say he was the best two-round amateur I’d ever seen. Besides, it wasn’t good for him to stay in Davenport because he had the wrong kind of friends there.”

Three times Surkein made plane reservations for Nunn to return to California and three times Nunn failed to show.

The third time, Surkein blew up.

“You’ve missed your flight again, Mike,” Surkein said by phone. “We’re through. I can’t go through this anymore.

“Goodby.”

Click.

Nunn called back. He’d go.

That was nearly five years ago. Nunn has since won all 32 of his pro fights, 22 by knockout, along with the IBF title.

Advertisement

He has gone from prelim fighter to marquee name, from $1,500 a fight to tonight’s big payday.

“But with all his success,” Surkein said, “he’s kept his feet right on the ground. He hasn’t changed.”

Indeed, Nunn may wear a better cut of cloth these days, but he hasn’t forgotten the cloth he was cut from, his roots.

No army of followers for him, no fleet of cars, no ton of gold trinkets around his neck, no Robin Givens.

In July, Nunn will marry Loretha Boyce, his Davenport sweetheart of a decade.

“We’ve been together for a long time,” Nunn said. “She’s been with me since the time when I didn’t have nothing, when I just thought about being champ.”

After every fight, Nunn returns home to Davenport to visit his mother Madies, his brother Willie, and boyhood friends like Danny Don and John Haines. He even stays with Don and Haines on occasion.

“They idolize me,” Nunn said, “but when I get together with them, I don’t have to put on a show. In some ways, they look at me now like I’m from another planet. But because I respect them and they respect me, we have remained close friends.”

Advertisement

Only once has Nunn strayed from his new life. Last year, he got involved in a fight in a Valley restaurant that allegedly was started by a friend of his. The case was settled out of court and no charges were pressed.

It was a sharp reminder of the life he could have had.

“I thank God that Bob Surkein existed,” Nunn said. “I thank God that I listened to him. Otherwise, who knows what I would be now. There are so many temptations out there--selling drugs, robbing banks. Thank God I got away from so many things in my community.”

Nor, insists Nunn, is there much danger he’ll slip back or be attracted by the new temptations fame and fortune have brought his way.

“I’m not going to be somebody I’m not,” he said. “I’m not really into material things. I’m going to buy my mother a big house after this fight, but that’s about it. I can do without the rest of it. I just don’t get caught up in it.

“I can handle all this stuff as long as I keep positive people around me.

“Besides, if I changed, my mother would kill me. All this stuff is future shock for my family--seeing me on TV, people coming up and asking for autographs, businessmen trying to get close to me. You don’t find too many celebrities in our background. My Mom says, ‘It’s only my son. What’s everybody tripping out on.’ If she ever saw me change, she’d grab me by the neck and yank me back to reality.”

Advertisement