Michael Nunn vs Iran Barkley

[TheGreatA]

I thought that this was a pretty impressive performance by Barkley considering how dominant Nunn had looked previously. Barkley often gets a reputation as a journeyman/club fighter who got lucky but at his best he was able to trouble world class fighters and even beat them.

[KostyaTszyu44]

both very good fighters, barkley is very underated in my opinion, and as a matter of fact so is nunn

[ironjab]

nunns knockout of kalambay was stunning

[cueball66]

both were very good fighters! imo its a shame there were no fights with eubank/benn or watson (apart from benn/barkley)
WOW if only the middleweight scene was like that these days!!
how can anyone call barkley a club fighter?!! (only guy to beat hearns twice!)....(surley once is enough!)

[Burning Desire]

Anyone who calls Iran Barkey a journeyman doesn't know about boxing end of, i watched this fight over a year ago i thought Iran Barkley done very well. But Michael Nunn pulled it out by a few rounds, i believe this fight was the beginning of the end for Michael Nunn.

Even though he didn't look bad against Donald Curry i don't think he was anywhere near his best against Iran Barkley, Marlon Starling. His last great performance was against Sumbu Kalambay, and he was pretty good in all his fights before the Sumbu Kalambay one, i don't know what happened but he seemed to go down hill after the Sumbu Kalambay fight.

[¿?枯葉剤¿?]

Iran Barkley was no journeyman by today's standards, he fought in the deepest era ever of middleweights. It's the same reason why Ron Lyle, Jerry Quarry, George Chuvalo aren't considered journeyman.

[TheCheetah]

Thomas Williams Vs. Iran Barkley

[talip bin osman]

im pretty sure his boxing skills has been put by him to good use in prison...

as punky brewster had said many years ago... "just say no..."

[BennyST]

Berkley is a very underrated fighter. Those who don't know him well will often call him just a slugger, and at his worst he was just that. At his best though (against Duran, Hearns II, Nunn etc) he was a smart pressure fighter that actually had good boxing skills, mixed his attack very well and of course had amazing power. He had a very underrated jab.

One thing about Barkley though which I find very, very impressive and which few people have ever touched upon. He was the only fighter to ever beat Tommy Hearns by a decision. No one else even got particularly close to beating him on a decision. He would have beat Leonard the first time (obviously he didn't because he got TKO'd, but he was leading at the time. Not that it mattered) and he did beat him the second time clearly but not even Leonard's media power and darlingness were able to push that decision to a win for him. His few losses only came about by fighters who were able to break him down and knock him out. Barkley was the only ever fighter to out-fight, out-hustle and, in the end, out-box Hearns to a decision. Incredible!

I think few people also realise that he was a three weight world champion, winning the middleweight, S. middleweight and the L. heavyweight titles. Of less importance but still a very impressive feat was his knockout of the former (a very recent former champ) heavyweight champion Gerry Coetzee (who had knocked out the undefeated Michael Dokes for the WBC heavyweight championship and had also beaten such fighters as Leon Spinks, Pinklon Thomas, James Tillis, Scott LeDoux etc) for the completely irrelevant WBB heavyweight title. He would have been added alongside Jones Jr as the only recent MW to HW titlist had it been for a 'real' title, apart from Toney of course but while his drug scandal kept him from achieving it, Jones' didn't). Amazing.

He was a very, very good fighter at his best and absolutely fought everyone.

[Southpaw16BF]

Very impressive performance by Iran Barkley. Going into this fight Nunn was 33-0 and was coming off his best ever performance getting a 1st round KO victory against world class Sumbu Kalambay who was a 9 fight win streak and wins in that streak included Herol Graham(38-0), Iran Barkley, Mike McCallum(32-0-0), Robbie Sims and Doug DeWitt.Kalambay had also captured the European Title and WBA middlweight title and made 3 defences of his WBA.

Then Michael Nunn KO'd him in 1 round in what was a real shocker. When Nunn and Barkley were matched many people thought Nunn was the far better fighter and if Nunn brings his A game, he will be to much fo Iran. But Barkley surprises alot of people and gives a ''Prime'' Nunn his toughest fight to date, losing a Majority decision.

After this fight many people were very impressed with Barkley and touted him to gain momentum fom this performance and go on to get another world title and win some big fights, but Iran in his career blew hot and cold,after this great peformance agaisnt Nunn, one dimensional Brit Nigel Benn(26-1-0) would stop Barkley in 1 round in a slugfest, which may have been stopped a tad to early.But it was still a fight many picked Barkley to win and wasn't conidered a major test as Benn going into the fight had been stopped by Michael Watson and the fight after Benn would be stopped by Chris Eubank.

But Barkely's career was mostly up and down, if you look at his record you will find this out,but on a good day Barkley was a very strong, punched pretty hard, and applied good pressure.And when he turned with his A game on he was a real threat to any of the elite and could beat the elite as fighters like Hearnsx2, and Michael Nunn found out.