Iowa Stunner: Nunn Stopped : Boxing: For Toney, a baseball field in Davenport is a hitter’s park as he stops previously unbeaten IBF middleweight champion in the 11th round.

Michael Nunn made a mistake and paid the price.

The Davenport native who now lives in Agoura Hills, lost his International Boxing Federation middleweight title after being stopped by challenger James Toney with 36 seconds left in the 11th round of a fight at a minor league baseball park Friday night.

Nunn exchanged punches with Toney in the middle of the ring when he dropped his hands to land a punch. That was all Toney needed as he rocked the champion with a thunderous left hook.

Nunn landed on his back, dazed, and had barely made it to his feet at the nine count by referee Denny Nelson.

It was only the second time in his career he had been down.

Up but wobbling, Nunn was driven into the ropes by a right to the chin. Nunn sagged over the top of the ropes and the finisher was another left hook to the head, which dropped Nunn to his knees. He got up, but Nelson stopped it at 2:24.

“I got sloppy. I dropped my hands and got caught,” said Nunn after his first professional loss. “He really fought a good fight. He took some good shots.

“I’m going to take a little time off and come back.”

Toney had predicted weeks ago he would defeat Nunn in front of his hometown fans. “What did I tell you two months ago?” he said.

“The crowd helped me win the fight. I had to keep the pressure on him, because I knew I’d wear him down at the end. I hurt him with a left hook in the 10th.

“Nunn was quicker than me, but he never hurt me.”

It was the first loss in 37 fights for Nunn, who simply had to stay up to retain his title.

Toney, 22, of Detroit, improved to 26-0-1.

Nunn, making his sixth title defense, appeared to be in command, throwing effective jabs and using quick footwork to escape Toney’s barrages. But Nunn began to tire in the 10th.

At the time the fight was stopped, all three judges had Nunn ahead. Gary Merritt scored it 97-93, Robert Watson 99-91 and Dalby Shirley 98-92.

Nunn also appeared hurt in the seventh when a right by Toney snapped the champion’s head back.

But for most of the bout at John O’Donnell Stadium along the Mississippi River, Nunn scored consistently with jabs. His quick steps frustrated Toney, who did little damage in the early going.

Toney bided his time, though. Throughout the fight, billed as the “Rumble on the Riverbank,” he smiled and smirked after each Nunn volley to show the punches were having no effect.

Toney earned $65,000 while Nunn made $500,000, plus a portion of the gate receipts.

The stunning end to Nunn’s three-year championship reign and his unbeaten record had ramifications reaching beyond Davenport. Gone was a hoped-for fight with unbeaten light- heavyweight champion Virgil Hill, who meets Thomas Hearns in a pay-per-view fight June 3 at Caesars Palace.

Amateur rivals in 1984, Hill bumped Nunn off the Olympic team that summer, the last fight Nunn had lost until Friday night.

There was a touch of irony to the wild scene in the ring after the stunning finish. Pay-per-view TV broadcaster Joe Goossen, Nunn’s ex-trainer, conducted a post-fight interview with Nunn, during which the former champion agreed with Goossen that he had become sloppy in the fight’s late rounds.

In a companion title fight, Michael Carbajal retained his IBF light-flyweight title with a 12-round decision over Hector Luis Patri.

Carbajal stayed unbeaten in 21 fights while earning $200,000. Patri, making his first appearance in the United States and only his second outside his native Argentina, dropped to 41-23-11. He earned $20,000.