Just brilliant James Toney in his prime....

it's a shame that this turned into a Roy Jones related thread...that fight was not cometitive at all and there is nothing to discuss



how about Tiberi and the second McCallum fight?

 

The Tiberi fight was one of the worst robberies ever. .Disgraceful.

 

yup... he was an ace counter-puncher, one of the best, just gorgeous to watch

but he struggled mightily against movement of any kind and could be outworked

 

yup. Regardless of the kind of shape he was in, Toney didn't deserve to keep his title just because he was in there with a guy he should have whupped easily.

 

Toney gets a lot of passes. He looked shitty in several fights. I wonder what could have done had he committed to fighting and kept in shape. However, that is like saying I wonder how Winky Wright would be with power. Toney's laziness is as ingrained in his dna as a bad chin is in other fighters.

 

Indeed.

 

Boxing's better for having had one lazy, non-versatile James Toney than 99.99% of fighters of the last 20 years

 

And would have been even better if he wasn't such a disgraceful lazy pig. athetic:

 

I don;t disagree, but the fact remains Toney gets a pretty easy ride from fans for shit that others would never live down and he WAS NOT VERSATILE

 

Without conceding any of these, what Toney wasn't compared to Montell Griffin is better.

 

If Toney was considered an all-time great, I would do a lot more

Fuck Toney.

As it is, Toney seems to be relegated to the status he deserves--a very talented piece of shit

 

Tiberi beat him. Those fights with Jones, Thadzi, Tiberi, if Toney had come across a real heavy-handed, mean-minded SOB of an opponent, he could have gotten decommissioned permanently.

 

mikE dislikes something cool. Shocker.

 

"I don't play boxing."

:bears:

 

Toney vs Bert Cooper is a great fight.

Cooper was limited as hell but did have very very good punches at point-blank range, and Toney wouldn't have hit hard enough to take him out like Moorer and Holyfield did.

It would have been like a higher-class version of Toney vs Peter Part-One, with Cooper getting tagged continuously and buzzed but always being one punch away from being right back in it. All James would have to do is zig when he shudda zagged and that short right would find a home.

 

If that's a Toney quote is sums up exactly why I love him.

 

But he did play boxing, and might have gotten seriously hurt as a result. Eating lettuce and water is pretty much as close as you can get to playing. Granted, he didn't do it all the time.

 

it is a quote, after one of his high-profile version 2.0 victories, maybe the win over holyfield.

 

Don't you guys think it's weird that Toney is that punch drunk?

He's always had excellent defense, not taking that many flush shots.

I guess the extra weight of heavyweight shots really took their toll on a guy that was nowhere near a natural heavyweight.

 

Nah, it's all the sparring. Toney spent the last decade hanging out in boxing gyms challenging everyone in sight.

Toney didn't run or exercise... all he did was spar to get ready for fights.

 

He's taken quite a few flush shots as well. He just has an anvil chin to go along with his great defense. Also like steve_dave pointed out he would spar anybody. I'm sure he took quite a few bombs from much bigger guys throughout the years as well.

 

Good point, I forgot about Toney being a gym warrior. He also seems like the kind of guy that wouldn't care about wearing headgear half the time.

 

Or eating a bunch of shots just to prove the other guy hits like a pussy.

 

Sparring is a chief culprit - its sparring that killed Terry Norris rather than any of the relatively quick, clean stoppage losses.

 

Toney liked a long lie, no doubt. I broadly split boxers into two stylistic camps though - those trying to win the sporting contest so the officials gives them the W (playing boxing) & those trying to win the fight so the other guy knows who the better man is. Most every aspect of suck comes the first mindset : leap amateur & jazzercise point-punching, '>LOOK IM BLOCKING/AVOIDING IT!<' earmuff & distance defense, shameless escapology of all descriptions & the biggest travesty of all, the clown ring. *spit* Players don't even bother slyly cheating to hurt the other guy - it wouldn't impress the judges. And it only runs the risk of the contest degenerating into a real fight. 'Post-industrial culture moved our focus from (being) to appearing'. That and shitty amateur scoring rules.

Toney didn't play:Hanzkiller:

 

I love Toney for being one of the more skilled counter-punchers, in-fighters, and old-school fighters I've ever seen.

I hate Toney for twice disgracing the sport of boxing by CHEATING in his fight with Ruiz, and then getting steamrolled by a cage-fighter in front of all the cage fighting public

 

Toney main reason for being punch drunk imo is beause of his weight problems and constant strugle to make weights. When you're not feeding properly, it affects the protective barrier around your brain, and when you get hit in that state, of course you're gonna have more dammage done to it.

Obviously, his non stop sparring is another reason

 

This, he was in a ton of gym wars. He sounded messed up by the time he was fighting Jirov.

 

Toney also used to spar a lot of 5-minute rounds in getting ready for fights, and he would spar anybody. He sparred O. J. Simpson's lawyer Shapiro either before or while the trial was going on.

James just always liked to show he was the toughest guy, and if you hit anything hard enough and long enough, it's not going to be the same.

 

Personalich, I think it is stupid to spar if you have experience. Joe Calzaghe rarely spar ever. Terry Norris is a vegetable because of sparring. WHY FIGHT FOR FREE? IF I were a fighter, I would insist on being moved like Chavez senior. You fight every 3 months a real fight even against bums. I think sparring and running to prepare have no business in boxing training.