Nunn, Too, Must Face His Rocky

LAS VEGAS — Once upon a time, before his opponents looked like villains from a Superman movie, before his fights looked like footage from The Incredible Hulk, before he and reality had parted ways, Rocky Balboa was actually a pretty endearing character.

That was a decade ago when Rocky, the movie (no Roman numeral yet required), won an Oscar for best picture.

Deservedly so.

Writer-actor Sylvester Stallone had carved out a reel slice of life in the ring. He had captured one of the most poignant devices of the matchmaker.

Call it a setup. Call it a tuneup. But you can’t honestly call it a match.

It’s the smooth, brilliant champion or top contender against the one-punch palooka; the guy living in the penthouse looking to sharpen his skills against a club fighter whose only chance to get out of the basement is a lucky punch, the kind of guy who coulda been somebody, coulda been a contenda.

That was the premise for Rocky Balboa vs. Apollo Creed. Stallone based it on Muhammad Ali’s title defense against an unknown named Chuck Wepner.

But it’s nothing new. Joe Louis had his Bum-of-the-Month Club a half-century ago. They can’t all be Ali-Frazier or Leonard-Hagler. Champions need to stay sharp and rich in between those blockbuster battles, the unranked fighter needs to keep bread on the table and the matchmaker needs matches.

Plus, it sells.

Sure, the ringside fan will tell you, I know this guy has no chance, but all it takes is one good punch. And if that happens, I want to be there.

Such a match is scheduled for Tuesday night at The Country Club in Reseda where the legendary Ron Daniels of Bakersfield will meet Michael Nunn in a 10-round, non-title fight.

Daniels, 24, is 11-6 with nine knockouts, the most impressive coming in December when he stopped David Braxton, a top junior middleweight, on a fourth-round KO.

But Daniels, a big puncher, is going to have to get awfully lucky to do much damage against the smooth, fast Nunn. The North Hollywood fighter (29-0, 19 knockouts) is ranked only behind semi-retired Marvin Hagler among the world’s middleweights and already has signed to face International Boxing Federation middleweight champion Frank Tate on July 28 at Caesars Palace.

Trainer Benny Benjamin, who is playing Burgess Meredith to Daniels’ Stallone, naturally, concedes nothing.

“Ron is on so much of a high right now, it’s hard to explain,” says Benjamin, who does the talking for his fighter. “It’s not every day you get a shot like this. The first few weeks we were training, I didn’t think my fighter would have a chance. Now I think he’s going to beat Nunn. If I didn’t think we had a chance, I’m not going to put him in there.

“If he listens to me, we win. We have to cut off the ring on Nunn. Sure he’s fast, but I told my fighter, ‘Let Nunn move his two or three steps back. He can only stretch so far. Then you move in. Once he extends himself, it’s in your ballpark.’ ”

You can almost imagine Benjamin puffing on a cigar, a gleam in his eye, telling his fighter, “You’ve thrown away your life, Rock. Now’s your chance to go pick it up.”

Surprisingly enough, Nunn is also falling into character. Confident but soft-spoken in the past, he suddenly must have run across Apollo Creed’s old script.

“They all say the same things, all my opponents,” Nunn declares in disgust. “They’re all going to cut the ring off on me. Well, if you say something, you ought to be able to back it up. None of these chumps can.

“I’m going to bite Ron Daniels’ head off Tuesday, gouge his eyes out. Ron Daniels has a China chin and it’s going to be exposed Tuesday. Benny Benjamin better bring a shovel so he can scrape up his fighter. It’ll give me great satisfaction to beat up on Daniels for saying something like that. They all say that and I’m still pretty and I’m still No. 1. He’s going to hit my body? I’ll give him my body. Like the barber in his shop says, ‘Next!’ ”

Nunn has the part down. All he needs is the star-spangled hat, a couple of dance steps and Apollo is back.

As for Daniels, he’ll show up Tuesday.

Yo, Adrian.