BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS : U.S. Remains Undefeated as Three More Win : Boxing: Nicholson, Reyes and Byrd have easy bouts as the team improves to 6-0. However, Cuba’s Savon looms.

U.S. boxers scored three easy victories during the Olympic boxing tournament Tuesday, improving the team’s mark to 6-0 after three days of the two-week competition.

Heavyweight Danell Nicholson, bantamweight Sergio Reyes and middleweight Chris Byrd won decisions, with featherweight Julian Wheeler and light-heavyweight Montell Griffin scheduled for bouts today.

Nicholson defeated England’s Paul Lawson, 10-2. The Chicago heavyweight is 24 and started boxing only three years ago. But in Lawson he met a 19-year-old even less experienced.

Reyes scored a 10-1 victory over Harold Ramirez of Puerto Rico, and Byrd, in the next bout, defeated Mark Edwards of Britain, 21-3.

Nicholson’s future in the tournament is doubtful. He will probably meet Cuba’s world champion, Felix Savon, in the quarterfinals. That would probably mean that this U.S. team wouldn’t break the U.S. record for a winning streak from the start of an Olympic tournament--16, in 1984.

Savon and U.S. light-flyweight Eric Griffin are considered the two strongest gold-medal favorites, and Savon also made his first appearance an easy one Tuesday. In the last bout on the 34-bout card, the 6-foot-3 Savon stopped Krzysztof Rojek of Poland in two rounds.

Nicholson didn’t have much to say after his runaway over Lawson, except that he had lost his wind.

“I wasn’t happy with everything I did out there, but I’m satisfied I got a win,” he said. “I got winded, but I sucked it up and got back in it.”

Nicholson sometimes seems unsure of himself. But he seemed to gain rhythm and confidence with each round against Lawson.

He rocked Lawson with a long right hand with 18 seconds left in the first round, prompting Ghanan referee Keith Dadzie to give Lawson a standing-eight count. The punch helped give Nicholson a 3-0 lead after one round.

He increased that to 8-2 after two rounds when he began landing straight right hands consistently. One of them, with a minute left in the second, brought about another standing eight count for Lawson.

Both Reyes and Byrd said they were eager but not nervous before their opening bouts. Each, in fact, called the Olympics “just another boxing tournament.”

Said Reyes: “I did what I always do--I listened to Beatles music before the bout, to relax. I’ve been doing that for 16 years.”

And Byrd: “No one can beat me at home, so why should this be any different?”

Reyes is a sturdy 5-3, short even for a bantamweight. He works best inside on taller opponents. Ramirez is several inches taller, but Reyes controlled the bout with an unrelenting body assault at close range.

Late in the bout, Ramirez was holding on, his legs rubbery from trying to avoid the nonstop punches by the Marine from Ft. Worth.

Ramirez had his last chance with a minute left in the second, when he engaged Reyes in a desperate, toe-to-toe flurry that lasted about 20 seconds. But Reyes had much the better of it, landing short, jolting uppercuts. After that, Ramirez faded.

Reyes’ most visible scoring blow, one that probably could be seen by everyone in the arena, was a big left hook that caught Ramirez flush on the chin with 1:23 left in the bout.

Byrd, a 6-2, 165-pounder who trains in a 10-by-10-foot basement ring at home in Flint, Mich., had difficulty with Edwards at only two points in his runaway victory.

During the first and third rounds, Byrd allowed the shorter British fighter to back him up on the ropes, where he nailed Byrd with body shots and hooks to the head. That was surely noticed by Alcides Sagarra, the Cuban coach whose middleweight, Ariel Hernandez, could fight Byrd in the gold-medal match.

“The ropes are part of the ring, and Chris has to be able to box there just as well as he does in the center of the ring,” said his father, Joe. The senior Byrd didn’t seem happy that his son had let Edwards put him on the ropes.

“If a guy has you on the ropes, you could be blocking the view of two judges, so even if you score on a guy there, two judges can’t see it,” he said.

“A shorter man will always do that to a taller guy--back him up on the ropes. I can tell Chris how to box, but if he wants to get up on that (medal) platform, he’s got to do the boxing himself.”

The boxer said his father became upset between rounds.

“He said: ‘What you doing on the ropes?’ And: ‘Why are you holding your hands down?’ ”

Also Tuesday, heavyweight Arnold Vanderlijde of the Netherlands, known as “The Towering Tulip,” defeated Emelio Leti of Western Samoa, 14-0. Vanderlijde, in his third Olympics, is 6-7.