Nunn’s Challenge Tonight Is Street Fightin’ Man : If He Can Handle Barkley, the Multimillion-Dollar Middleweight Fights Await

Tonight is the night that Michael Nunn is supposed to break away from the ranks of million-dollar middleweights and become a multi-million dollar man. Beat Iran Barkley tonight, Nunn is told, and he will crash the rich middleweight division’s seniors tour featuring Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran.

The oddsmakers suggest, with 9-to-1 to 11-to-1 odds favoring Nunn, that it is an easy assignment, but there is uneasiness in the Nunn camp. In Barkley (25-5), Nunn (33-0) faces one of boxing’s enigmatic characters for whom no form chart can be assembled.

In contrast to Nunn’s smooth, classic style, Barkley is, plain and simple, a wild-swinging street fighter. Barkley fights like he is in a Dodge City saloon. “You feel more comfortable going in against a guy who has a certain style that you can plan for,” said Joe Goossen, Nunn’s trainer. “But this guy is a street fighter, a guy who’s awkward, who does everything wrong, a guy who throws punches from all kinds of angles.”

Example: Barkley vs. Thomas Hearns, June 6, 1988. For 2 1/2 rounds, Hearns was beating up Barkley. He opened cuts over Barkley’s eyes and seemed on the verge of a knockout. But Barkley caught Hearns on the chin with a desperation right and suddenly he was the World Boxing Council middleweight champion.

Barkley later lost his title on an upset decision to Duran last February. But a Hearns-like upset tonight in the University of Nevada Reno’s Lawlor Events Center would earn him Nunn’s International Boxing Federation middleweight crown.

Barkley has a way of creating sensational fights. His last three, the loss to Duran and knockout victories over Hearns and Michael Olajide, will be remembered for their violence.

Duran, by the way, slimming down to 160 pounds for his Dec. 7 fight with Leonard, will appear in a four-round exhibition bout on the undercard.

This will be Nunn’s first fight since his 88-second, one-punch knockout of Sumbu Kalambay in Las Vegas in March.

Nunn’s manager, Dan Goossen, hoped that a victory over Barkley would set up a Nunn-Hearns fight this fall, but now comes word that Hearns might take a fight with Olajide instead.

“If Tommy Hearns feels he’s no longer the best middleweight in the world, he should say so,” Goossen said. “When you go to the Super Bowl, you get the two best teams, right? Why would Tommy fight Olajide? No one wants that. That’s an ESPN fight.”

Manny Steward, Hearns’ manager, says it’s true that he has working on a Hearns- Olajide bout, but that a Hearns-Nunn matchup could follow.

“I don’t think Ray Leonard is ever going to fight Tommy again or Michael Nunn,” Steward said. “Ray simply can’t beat tall fighters, and he knows it. Tommy and I talked about it and when he asked me what was the most credible fight for him out there, I told him Hearns-Nunn, and he agrees with me. So we’re tentatively looking at Nunn for next spring.”

Nunn will be facing a man tonight who is not only one of boxing’s most dangerous fighters, but an angry one as well. It has to do with vegetables.

At the pre-fight news conference, Barkely was sullen and reporters had to prod him to get him to say what was bothering him.

“(Nunn) said bad stuff about me,” Barkley said.

“What did he say, Iran?”

“He said I had the I.Q. of a onion and that I was ugly,” Barkley said.

Barkley, who grew up in the Bronx section of New York and was taught how to fight by his sister, Yvonne, will earn roughly $500,000 tonight (Nunn gets $1.25 million). John Reetz, Barkley’s manager, says Barkley will be able to read the numbers on the check, but that’s about it.

“Iran knows he’s going to have to greatly improve his reading and writing skills if he wants to go into any kind of business after he’s through fighting,” Reetz said.

“He’s talked about opening a restaurant when he’s done with boxing, but I’ve made him understand he can’t do that if he has to rely on other people to do his reading and writing for him.

“Until he went into training for this fight, he was working with a tutor and he’ll pick it up again afterward. He may get involved in the New York state literacy program and do some TV spots where his message to kids will be, ‘Look at me, I make a million dollars boxing and I can’t read.’ ”

Barkley talked about his youth the other day, his life on the streets.

“It was tough . . . people died. I got beat up so bad once I was in the hospital. There was a lot of pressure on young guys. I was getting pulled away from school, which is where I should have stayed.”

Barkley’s older sister, who as “Yvonne the Killer” fought briefly as a pro, first taught her brother to box in a Bronx gym when he was 11.

“She sparred with me until I was 18, when I got too strong for her,” he said.

Barkley’s mentor for this fight is Ahmed Bey, onetime Army boxing champion who describes himself as a “retired gambler.”

“(Reetz) asked me to come into their team as a strategist for this fight,” Bey said. “They felt I knew more about Nunn than anyone who was available to help them. The first thing I told Iran is that he’s basically a street fighter and I told him not to change a thing.

“See, if this fight were in an alley, Iran would be the 10-1 favorite, not Nunn. Nunn is going to learn that Iran has the heart of a lion, that he’ll literally die trying to win. So we want a street fight. If it is, Nunn will get mugged.”

Barkley is a slow-footed banger. Nunn is extremely quick afoot and has fast hands.

Barkley turned to Nunn at the news conference and said: “Let’s make it a fight. Don’t get on your bicycle, brother.”

Nunn turned to reporters and said: “He keeps talking about ‘catching’ me. But the question he must answer is, when he catches me, is he going to like it?”