It’s Not Nunn, but It’s Big One for Johnson : Boxing: After waiting his turn, the Long Beach fighter will face Toney instead for the IBF middleweight title Saturday.

The big fight in Las Vegas this week is the Mike Tyson-Razor Ruddock rematch, heavyweights in a nontitle bout Friday night at the Mirage. Each will earn about $5 million.

But Saturday afternoon, at the Las Vegas Hilton, a young Long Beach middleweight named Reggie Johnson will appear in a championship bout for $60,000, hoping that a victory over James Toney will propel him to paydays that may not be on a level with Tyson’s, but at least will carry an extra digit.

For Johnson, 24, Saturday ends months of waiting for a championship opportunity that he had long assumed he would get against Michael Nunn. But Toney, a 17-1 underdog, stunned Nunn, knocking him out in his hometown, Davenport, Iowa, for the International Boxing Federation championship.

Johnson was to have fought Dennis Milton of New York on promoter Don King’s Tyson-Ruddock II card. But then rival promoter Bob Arum offered Toney to him for the next day.

Johnson is a onetime Texas amateur champion who fought his way out of Houston’s tough Fifth Ward.

“Most of the guys I grew up with either went to jail or got in trouble with drugs or are dead,” he said. “I was lucky. I made it out.”

In 1984, Johnson was on his way to the Los Angeles Olympics until he lost to eventual light-middleweight gold medalist Frank Tate at the Olympic trials. Johnson turned pro that summer and was 19-1 by late-1989 but was also having repeated beefs with his manager.

He joined the Dame Boxing Club then, headed by Bay Area contractor Carl Dame. Johnson is 11-0 since leaving Houston and considered by many to be--with Nunn--one of the middleweight division’s best pure boxers.

Toney is an awkward-looking, unorthodox brawler who throws punches from unconventional angles--such as the wild left hook he used to knock out Nunn in Iowa.

But in pro boxing, being known as a “pure boxer” can be the kiss of death. In pro boxing, promoters want bangers, not dancers. But though Johnson-Toney looks on the surface like a boxer-puncher matchup, Johnson’s adviser, Marty Denkin, says this one could develop into a puncher-puncher fight.

Until his recent fights, left-handed Johnson has boxed competently, but cautiously. He hadn’t shown any offense sufficient to frighten anyone until he knocked out Jose DaSilva at the Forum last October.

“I think people are going to see more offense from Reggie Saturday than people have seen from him before,” said Denkin, a onetime California Athletic Commission official who is now general manager of the Dame Boxing Club.

“Remember, Reggie’s been ranked high for a long time, he’s had a lot to protect in his last half-dozen fights. One mistake, and all he’s worked for could have been lost. Now, the long wait is over. I don’t expect to see a cautious Reggie Johnson Saturday.

“He’s been No. 1 IBF (contender) since last October. And all the time we’re telling him his title shot is a just a couple of months away. So that’s the reason, I think, for the conservative style. Saturday, you’ll see more abandonment.”

If Johnson wins the IBF title Saturday, Denkin said he may take him to London to fight Nigel Benn or Chris Eubank for a purse Denkin projects at $500,000. Another lucrative match-up would be with junior middleweight champion Terry Norris of Alpine, Calif.

The long wait was his trial, said Johnson, who lives in a rented Long Beach townhouse with his wife and two children.

“I’ve been tested by this long wait,” he said Tuesday, cooling down after a workout at the Top Rank Gym.

“I believe everything works out for the best. Maybe if I’d gotten my shot a while back, I wouldn’t have been ready. But now I am. I’m very confident. Toney is a dangerous guy, awkward and clumsy--but I believe anyone in front of me with two fists is dangerous.”

Tyson apologized publicly to Ruddock for insulting remarks at a satellite news conference in May.

At least, it seemed as if he apologized. It sounded a bit tongue-in-cheek, too. Nonetheless, Ruddock smiled and applauded.

“I’m sorry, Razor, that I called you bad names,” Tyson said during a news conference. He was responding to a questioner, who had asked Tyson if he believed his late mentor and guardian, Cus D’Amato, “would be proud of you” for Tyson’s remarks at the previous news conference.

At the time, Tyson called Ruddock a transvestite and told him, “I’m going to make you my girlfriend.”

Butch Lewis, who managed brothers Leon and Michael Spinks to the heavyweight championship, thinks Tyson has taken an unfair beating in the media lately. Lewis, it should be pointed out, is often mentioned as Tyson’s possible future manager, should the ex-champ, as has been rumored, split from promoter Don King.

“What you’ve got there is a 24-year-old kid who is asked to deal with it all--to answer all the media questions and keep everyone happy, and that ain’t gonna happen,” Lewis said.

“It takes time and maturity. Here’s a guy who went through some awful marital problems, and the whole thing was (played out) in public. If that was you or me. . . .

“And remember, he lost both Cus (D’Amato) and Jimmy Jacobs (his co-manager, who died in 1988) just in recent years. He relied on those people heavily. They were his buffers. And then they were gone.

“You can pitch a no-hitter in the World Series, you can be the world’s greatest soccer player, but if you’re the heavyweight champion of the world, you sit in a chair where everyone in the world can see you.

“Under the circumstances, I think Mike has handled it all very well.”

In Tyson-Ruddock I, many ringsiders thought Ruddock seemed exhausted by the fourth round of a fight that ended as a quick-trigger TKO for Tyson in the seventh, when referee Richard Steele abruptly stopped the bout.

Ruddock’s knees trembled and he held on to Tyson, often signs a fighter hasn’t done enough roadwork or gym work.

“He was in shape,” trainer Slim Robinson, said Tuesday. “His staying power was eaten up by anxiety before the fight. It was the first-time jitters, all the excitement. He’ll handle it better this time.”