A SHADOWED BOXER : North Hollywood’s Nunn Has Loyal Entourage in His Corner as he Spars for Championship

Bruce and Charlie decide to drive to Las Vegas, so they rent a Chrysler Fifth Avenue.

“What a car,” Charlie says.

But that immense automobile speeds them past the I-15 turnoff and into the desert beyond Indio. They have to turn back and they don’t reach Caesars Palace until 4 in the morning.

“We don’t mind,” Bruce says.

By Thursday afternoon, Bruce and Charlie are poolside, talking fast and joking. These two Hollywood men sell printed T-shirts for a living, and they are actors. They are also nervous.

The big fight is only two days away.

Bruce Reed and Charlie Guardino have come to see boxer Michael Nunn of North Hollywood, the No. 1 contender in the middleweight division. They count themselves among Nunn’s biggest fans.

The rest of the entourage drifts piecemeal into Las Vegas. Ahmed Bey, who calls himself a boxing handicapper, flies in on Friday with $20,000 stuffed in his sock. Sam DeMarco, a retired railroad worker, arrives with his son and daughter-in-law. Marc Klein, who distributes adult entertainment videos, brings his wife, Snow. Marcy Byrnes and Laura Seraso, known as the “lawyerettes,” show up dressed in black.

“We go to all Michael’s fights,” says Seraso, 32, a Beverly Hills attorney.

“He’s great,” says Byrnes, 35, also a Beverly Hills attorney.

“He’s wonderful.”

“The whole organization is classy.”

“Except for us.”

In the days before the fight, these people shadow Nunn. Some watch his workouts. Others sit at a nearby table as he eats breakfast in the coffee shop. A few stop by his hotel room to say hello.

They are mindful not to bother the boxer. They are content to remain close by as Nunn prepares to fight.

“He’s got the speed and the grace . . . it’s an art form,” says Ron May, an attorney who has flown in from Nunn’s hometown of Davenport, Iowa. “When you get a chance to see someone like Mike close up, you want to be a part of it. An opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime.”

Entourages are a tradition in boxing. Sugar Ray Robinson used to travel through Europe with a cadre that required several hotel floors. Sports columnist Jim Murray wrote: “He didn’t visit France, he invaded it.” Muhammad Ali later maintained a score of constant companions, as does current middleweight champion Thomas Hearns.

Unlike other professional athletes, most boxers seem pleased that fans want to hang around them. Perhaps because many fighters come from poor neighborhoods and continue to train in gyms there, they are rarely aloof.

And a boxer is easier to know than an entire football team, so followers are drawn to him in a more intimate way.

“It’s like having a baby, your own kid,” Klein says. “You watch how he grows, as a fighter and a person.”

Nunn’s entourage consists not of close friends, but of devoted fans who attend all his fights and occasionally watch him work out at the Ten Goose gym in North Hollywood. They are predominantly white and much older than the black, 24-year-old boxer. They have cheered Nunn to 29 straight victories in the last 3 1/2 years and anxiously await his shot at the title.

At a Friday morning weigh-in in Las Vegas, the faithful mill about while Nunn talks to boxing officials.

Bruce and Charlie look tired; they stayed up all night gambling. Marc Klein glances around uneasily. Klein hasn’t done much since arriving in Las Vegas. He prefers to remain in his hotel room with Snow until the night of the fight.

“We’ll go out to dinner sometimes,” he says. “But Nunn’s the attraction here. Not gambling. Not anything else.”

Workouts, weigh-ins and press conferences are important to the entourage. These events are opportunities to see their boxer and discuss the fight.

“Do we get nervous?” says Charlie. “We get laryngitis.”

Says Neal Miller, a Valley acupuncturist: “Michael will be the champion. He knows that. We all know that.”

Each follower claims some small part in the fighter’s success. Miller says he sometimes massages Nunn. Bruce and Charlie present custom-printed T-shirts and caps to Nunn and often hand fresh towels to his corner men during fights. A man named Bob, who refuses to give his last name, says he helps manage the fighter behind the scenes.

Others believe they have provided a sort of family, like second cousins, to this young man who moved from Iowa to the big city to pursue a professional boxing career.

“One of my greatest thrills in life is to see him step into the ring. Michael couldn’t do this without all of us,” Miller says. “After his 14th fight, uh . . . it was his 17th fight, he was in the ring and he turned and looked up at me in the stands. It was special for me.”

For this satisfaction, for this small involvement, Nunn’s most ardent fans pay to follow him wherever he goes. Some have even invested in Ten Goose gym. When asked about this devotion, most in the entourage say they have never considered it odd.

As May says, “The world loves a winner.”

Ahmed Bey shakes his head. He has followed Nunn several years, but he isn’t sold on this entourage deal.

The former answering-service magnate is a fixture in the fight game. He flies to Las Vegas from Riverside, where there was boxing the previous night. The night before that, he was at a San Diego arena. By Sunday evening, he will be in Tijuana for yet another evening at the fights.

Dressed in a Budweiser shirt and tan leisure slacks, Bey would rather talk odds and wagers than loyalty and friendship.

“They’ve got a lot of people on the bandwagon,” he says of Nunn’s fans. “I’m sort of a lone wolf.”

The lawyerettes spend much of Friday lifting weights and doing aerobics. They say they always stay at Bally’s because it has a better health spa than Caesars.

In black tights and Ten Goose T-shirts, the women are an odd sight among a fight crowd accustomed to old men in polyester slacks and young guys in sweat suits. Byrnes says her father used to train fighters. She converted her friend and colleague Seraso several years ago.

When Nunn boxes at the Country Club in Reseda, the women spend $240 for their own ringside table. When he boxes in Las Vegas, they schedule business trips with a client in northern Nevada to accommodate the fight.

“People frequently think this is weird,” Byrnes says. “But, if they meet Michael, they’re impressed as hell. Then they become fight addicts.”

And the lawyerettes enjoy Las Vegas. They talk of going to shows and partying.

Meanwhile, in a fourth-floor suite, Dan Goossen sits with his boxer. There are 24 hours until the fight and the telephone rings every few minutes--well-wishers and ticket-seekers asking for Michael Nunn. Goossen is adamantly protective of Nunn before fights. He intercepts all calls during the week. As Nunn becomes well-known, more and more young women are calling from the lobby to talk to the handsome, single boxer.

“These women will drive you crazy,” Goossen says.

Entourage members know better than to call or visit this close to the fight. Those who don’t know better are set straight.

“We’ve got to be very careful about the ‘Good-time-Johnnies,’ ” says Bob Surkein, a former amateur boxing official who discovered Nunn and remains his adviser. “Either they are good or they are going to be told to stay away.”

Nunn is unfailingly polite with fans, and has formed casual friendships with a few of the entourage. “It’s great that people want to be around me,” he says. “I always wanted that.” Still, the boxer worries that some people might be drawn to him simply because he possesses a quick jab and accurate uppercut.

“Trust is a big thing,” Nunn says. “I can sit and talk with people. But I’m not the kind of person who can open up to somebody just because I’ve known them for a year.”

And he has learned from Goossen and Surkein to shut the rest of the world out while preparing for a fight.

“People want to pat you on the back, but when I’m taking care of my business they have to give me space.”

So Bruce and Charlie pass the time at gaming tables. The lawyerettes hang out at the bar with actor Matthew Laurance, another Nunn fan, and complain that everyone is going to bed early. Like the fighter and his trainers, the rest of the entourage is preparing itself for a big Saturday.

Up in Dan Goossen’s suite, the telephone rings again. This time it is Sam DeMarco. Nunn invites him to come up. The 75-year-old railroad man and 24-year-old boxer embrace, they delight in each other’s company. Nunn says they think alike and, even better, “I know he doesn’t want anything from me.”

DeMarco talks to Nunn about the old days, when he grew up around boxers like Art Aragon and Rocky Marciano. He says he has never enjoyed boxing as much as he does now, with his new friend.

Still, if Nunn fights in Atlantic City or even Iowa, DeMarco won’t go.

“I’m scared to fly,” he says.

The scene outside Michael Nunn’s dressing room on Saturday evening is pandemonium. Several of the entourage hover nearby. Mr. T stands guard by the door, in skin-tight clothes and pounds of gold jewelry. A boxing official tries to clear a cluster of photographers from the area.

“This is a fight, not a celebrity golf tournament,” the man yells.

Charlie and Bruce push through the crowd. They have come from a nearby hospital with medical supplies that Nunn’s trainers forgot to pack.

Although his fighter is shut inside the dressing room, shielded from all this, Dan Goossen is upset. Commotion is not part of his strict formula for success.

“He’s got to get ready to do war,” Goossen says. “I don’t want anybody messing with him.”

In the pavilion, Neal Miller sits up by the top row and scans the crowd for his fellow fans. Klein and Snow have ringside seats. So do the lawyerettes, who are dressed in black as usual. Others are scattered in different sections. Charlie and Bruce will stand by Nunn’s corner with towels.

Rock music suddenly blares from loudspeakers: “Another One Bites the Dust.” Nunn and his handlers enter with the choreographed look of a Las Vegas show. The crowd applauds. Mr. T leads the boxer into the ring.

After three days of waiting, the whole thing is over in less than four minutes.

Nunn ends the fight early in the second round with a perfect, concussive uppercut to the chin of Curtis Parker. Nunn couldn’t have asked for a more impressive defense of his North American Boxing Federation title, nor a better preface to the world championship bout he will fight this summer. The young boxer leaps up onto the ropes and raises his fists as Parker lays motionless on the canvas.

“It was great, it was great!” Klein says. Miller looks around the pavilion to see his friends jumping and screaming.

“It’s like a family,” Miller says.

Klein is host to a private post-fight party in a hospitality room at Bally’s. Finally the entourage can unite in celebration with its fighter.

The lawyerettes drink and laugh--it’s time to party. Bruce is talking to Nunn’s trainer. DeMarco sits quietly on the couch next to his son and daughter-in-law. A group of people from Castaic Brick Manufacturing Co.--they pay to put their logo on Nunn’s boxing trunks--walks in.

Everyone is smiling and talking about a title fight that will come this summer. Nunn circulates through the room, fashionably dressed, offering hugs to certain people and shaking hands with others.

“I’m excited,” says the guy named Bob. “How can you not get excited?”

The next day, everyone goes home. Charlie steers that Chrysler Fifth Avenue back to Hollywood without missing a turnoff. Bruce sleeps the whole way.