Nunn May Be Killing Golden Goossens : Boxing: He’ll make big money fighting Starling Saturday, but his life has begun to resemble Tyson’s.

It isn’t much of a reach to suggest that the two best-managed fighters in the world in the late 1980s were Mike Tyson and Michael Nunn.

Curiously, both are estranged from their management teams early in 1990. There are similarities in the Tyson and Nunn cases, all of which suggest that in boxing, a rapid rise to big money is great for the boxer, poison for the manager.

Tyson and Nunn failed to make the 1984 Olympic team. Tyson was 17 and widely perceived as a can’t-miss pro prospect, even after losing the U.S. Olympic heavyweight berth to Henry Tillman.

Tyson was by then solidly with Jimmy Jacobs and Bill Cayton, and under them he rose swiftly to the heavyweight championship, becoming the world’s highest-paid athlete.

But Jacobs died in early 1988, leaving Cayton in charge. Legally, Cayton remains Tyson’s manager until 1992, but Tyson has chosen to be advised by his promoter, Don King.

Nunn recently walked, too. But his story had different beginnings. When Nunn lost to Virgil Hill for the 1984 Olympic middleweight spot, he was not widely recruited by pro trainers. The only pro people to show interest in him were the Goossen brothers, Dan and Joe, of North Hollywood.

On the advice of his longtime father figure/adviser in Davenport, Iowa, Bob Surkein, Nunn signed with the Goossens in 1984. He developed quickly as a pro, showing superb boxing skills--quick movement and a long-range jab that no opponent to date has solved.

Many sneered at Nunn’s style and derisively called him a runner. But by 1988, it was apparent that he was a world-class fighter.

Nunn (34-0) makes the fourth defense of his International Boxing Federation middleweight championship Saturday night against Marlon Starling, the World Boxing Council welterweight champion, at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas.

Nunn will earn $1.1 million Saturday, his third million-dollar payday.

He was moved expertly early in his career by the Goossens, who never made serious money with Nunn until he won his middleweight championship in the summer of 1988 by beating Frank Tate. Nunn earned $150,000 for that fight. Before that, his previous biggest payday was $60,000 against Kevin Watts, in January of 1988.

The first whispers of strife from Team Nunn were heard last summer. Contract trouble was the reason. Nunn’s deal with the Goossens is that Dan gets 33 1/3%, and Joe, the trainer, gets 10%. Both percentages are standard. The contract runs through next Nov. 25.

Nunn wanted a bigger cut. Goossen offered 70-30. Nunn wanted 80-20. But by the time 80-20 was being discussed, according to Surkein, the Goossens weren’t sure that money was all that was troubling Nunn.

Nunn, who owns a home in Agoura Hills, also spends long periods between fights in his Iowa hometown. Nunn began to insist that some friends and relatives from Davenport be involved in the management of his career. The Goossens resisted.

The final break came on March 17 at Nunn’s Pine Valley training camp, in eastern San Diego County. Nunn’s cousin, Marshall Jackson, argued with Dan Goossen all day about a new contract. Finally, Nunn, Goossen, Surkein and Jackson were in the same room late that night.

According to Surkein and Goossen, a shouting match developed, and Jackson called Goossen “a thief and a liar.”

Surkein: “Dan looked at Mike, who sat there, not saying a word. Dan said to him, ‘Mike, tell him!’ And Mike just sat there. He wouldn’t say a word. And that was the end. When Danny walked out of the room, his face was white.”

Nunn left camp that night.

On Wednesday, Goossen, 40, sat in his hotel suite and surveyed the wreckage.

“We knew we had a problem last summer, after the (Iran) Barkley fight,” he said.

“Mike became silent and distant with me. Until that point, our relationship had transcended business. It was a perfect kind of relationship to me. We enjoyed each other’s company. He was fun to be around, I really enjoyed him.

“This has been devastating to us, professionally and personally. He took our heart and soul with him, because that’s what we gave him. Everything we did, we did for him. But you can’t force people to be loyal to you . . . “

Surkein, 71, a retired businessman who lives in North Ft. Myers, Fla., said he’s “angry and disappointed” at Nunn for leaving the Goossens. But, unlike Goossen, he remains on speaking terms with the fighter. Surkein, a longtime amateur boxing official, befriended Nunn several years ago at an amateur boxing tournament.

Nunn was well-served by the Goossens, he said.

“When you add up all the time and money they invested in Michael, long before he became a big-money fighter, they were into him for maybe $250,000,” Surkein said.

“Early in his career, they took nothing out of his purses. They did a great job with him. Look at Julio Cesar Chavez. For the last five years, everybody in boxing said he’s the greatest fighter in the world. And he just had his first million-dollar purse. Look how fast Danny got Michael there.

“Loyalty, commitment, gratitude . . . those are words I don’t see in him now, and it mystifies me. My God, they offered to sign him for an 80-20 split--how many fighters ever had a deal like that?

“I’ve known Michael since he was a little kid, and I just don’t know what’s happened to him. This change in him was so abrupt, so quick. . . . It’s left me bewildered.

Surkein said the Goossens were once close to placing Nunn with Creative Artists of Beverly Hills, a major talent agency in the entertainment industry. But the deal unraveled, according to Surkein, when Nunn first missed some appointments, then began making the wrong kind of headlines.

--In March 1988, Nunn was involved in a brawl at a North Hollywood restaurant during which six people were injured and a bouncer suffered a broken nose.

--Last October, in Davenport, both Nunn and his mother were combatants in a sidewalk free-for-all, after which he was arrested.

--Last December, Nunn said he injured his back in a fall on a stairway in his home, forcing the postponement of the original date, Jan. 7, for the Starling fight. How, many wondered, can a middleweight champion of the world fall down a flight of stairs?

--Last January, Nunn was involved in an altercation with a 57-year-old man on the shoulder of a freeway in Van Nuys. Nunn claimed the man rear-ended his Mercedes.

Through all the turmoil, though, Nunn has remained unbeaten in the ring. And at 26, his future seems as lucrative as any fighter outside the heavyweight division.

These days, Goossen looks back ruefully at lost opportunities.

At least twice, Dan Goossen turned down chances to manage other, potentially big-money fighters. He was approached by promoter Bob Arum about managing some boxers from the Soviet Union who have since turned pro for New York promoter Lou Falcigno.

He said he was once contacted by a 1988 U.S. Olympic gold medalist about managing him, as well as by “other world champions.”

Goossen said: “I told them all the same thing, that I wouldn’t even meet with them, that running Nunn’s career took all my time.”

Nunn will not talk at length about his troubles with the Goossens. However, when asked about the Goossens, he said:

“It’s not like they (the Goossens) weren’t compensated.”

“I was the guy getting hit, you know. This whole thing is like a merger of two companies, and any time you do that, someone’s not going to be happy. But it’s water under the bridge. Life goes on.”

Dan Goossen still will collect 33 1/3 % of Nunn’s purse Saturday, and will continue to do so through November. Joe Goossen will get his 10%, even though he won’t be in Nunn’s corner. Nunn’s new trainer is Cassius Green, who first appeared in the Nunn/Goossen split last December.

“Green came up to me in December and said, ‘Bob, you know the Goossens can’t take Mike any further,’ meaning he could,” Surkein said. “I just laughed at him.”

And who takes over as Nunn’s manager in November? Butch Lewis’ name is heard often in talk of Nunn’s future, and the former manager of Michael Spinks admits there has been contact.

“I have talked to some of Nunn’s people who approached me,” Lewis said. “I told them when Nunn is not under contract to anyone else, I would talk to him.”

The Nunn-Goossen split seemed permanent this week. Nunn said only “nothing is impossible” when asked if a reconciliation was possible. But Goossen seemed to have steeled himself to a post-Nunn career when he said, “The man who was speaking for Michael called me a thief and a liar. To me, Mike’s actions have spoken louder than words.”

As for Surkein, when he arrived at the prefight news conference Thursday, Nunn went to him, hugged him and kissed him on the cheek.

Surkein wears a stainless steel Rolex watch Nunn gave him.

“He wanted to give me a gold one, but I told him if he did, I’d take it back,” Surkein said.

The watch is inscribed: “To my father, from his son.”