Greater/Better: chavez or toney

Completely original thread

 

Toney was better . Had skills beyond belief. Chavez was greater in that he did a bit more and was involved in more epic fights. As damaging as was his fight with Whittaker to his reputation, Toney had similar nights with lesser guys like Tiberi.


Toney better, Chavez greater.

 

Chavez was both better and greater by a substantial margin. And this is coming from a huge Toney fan.

 

Yeah, I don't feel there is much here for Toney. Greater is clear - it's Chavez. Better is closer but I still think Chavez. Style-wise, I think he tends to get painted as more one dimensional than his career actually bears out. The pressure fighting version is indelibly imprinted in people's brains from his latter championship career (1991-1994) where the level of opposition was generally average and he could just walk through his opposition without needing to show much cuteness. I think the Rosario fight was the one where that version of Chavez emerged. Earlier in his career he was comfortable fighting off the back foot as well and showed good defense as well as offense.

With Toney, the image of him is with his back to the ropes, slipping punches and countering expertly but, by his own admission, until the McCallum fight he was more of a search and destroy fighter, and not as elusive at all. He was the one following Nunn and Reggie Johnson around the ring, for example.

So skills-wise, I say Chavez was at least equally skilled (if not more so) but needed to rely on some of those things less in his late 20s/early 30s than he had before.

 

Great post.

 

Im not so sure. toney has better wins imo. More inconsistent than Chavez for sure though

 

Toney's best wins are definitely better, and while I appreciate a good résumé more than the next man, it's not everything. And even if it were, it's not like Chavez is miles behind. The problem with saying Toney is greater IMO, has nothing to do with résumé though. You're comparing one of the most consistent fighters ever, to one infamous for inconsistency. There's 89-0-1 reasons to pick Chavez here, so to speak. If this were a top-five wins comparison, then Toney wins hands down; Nunn, McCallum, Reggie, Jirov and Holyfield, is way better than Randall, Ramirez, Rosario, Taylor and Lockridge. Toney was always gonna be better suited to jump up and down through weights, as I recall, he was a 200lbs quarterback in high-school. His success at CW/HW is a little overblown IMO, but still highly impressive. Certainly more impressive than Chavez's run at 140 and 147. That said, I don't think it's more impressive than going 89-0-1, certainly not if you don't give Toney a free pass for his losses to Rahman and Peter. I have Chavez just inside the top forty (#39), and Toney just outside the top seventy five (#77).

Talking 'better', I think it's closer. Both were brilliant, but I think both are a little overrated in their respective original eight divisions. Their power's similar, chin is as well, stamina has a clear edge to Chavez and speed has a clear edge to Toney. In terms of their upper body skill, I think Toney has it. Obviously, he has an excellent defence. He also had a serviceable jab and a brutal cross-counter. Nasty left hook too, and he can to the body well, but it's his defence that's the best thing about it. I love how Toney strung combos together and found his openings in a split second before slipping a one-two then rolling out under a left hook. Chavez has a better offense, but not quite as good a defence. If I had to say which was better: Chavez's defence or Toney's offense, I'd go with Toney's. Close, though. Chavez pulls away with skills in his lower-body.

He had so much better footwork. Chavez could cut off the ring with the best of 'em, and he was a handy boxer-puncher too in his younger days. Toney's footwork wasn't bad, it was technically very good. Very economic and efficient. However, it's effectiveness decreased depending on who was in front of him. Even in his Magnum Opus, vs Barkley, as soon as Barkley was on top of him and he lost his space, he couldn't make more with his feet. He had to push Barkley off himself. in similar situations, Chavez has been able to find those half steps and turn his weight into making new punching paths. It's not even a contest in terms of chasing down a backing up opponent.

The other reason I think Chavez was better, is that he was more adaptable. Stylistically, Toney had a big jarring issue vs fighters who moved away. Similar to Medel, or Eddie Mustafa. He doesn't have an effective way of leading, and he doesn't have an effective way to making somebody lead - as already mentioned. Chavez often made small adjustments vs different types of fighters. For example; vs Taylor, he saw he couldn't grind him down conventionally because Taylor was too quick. He waited for Mel to lean in with his cross, and set-up a tripwire counter-hook and wore him down with it; vs Ramirez, he kept pivoting round Ramirez's right foot and feeding his cross-counter straight down the centre; vs Rosario, he worked off more of a high-guard defence and focused on suffocating Rosario on the inside, and feinting to the body with his level changes; vs Lockridge, he focussed on boxing more and refusing Rocky his calling card by shutting down exchanges with a parrying mummy guard; vs Mario Martinez, he showed an excellent ability to fight off the ropes.... so on and so forth. Toney's ring IQ was obviously very high, but Chavez's was higher IMO.

I think Chavez is better compared to Jones or Hopkins than Toney, to be frank.

 

Chavez never saw a punch he couldn't eat.

Toney started at 160 and went all the way to 200+ against very dangerous men.

I don't care how allegedly untalented Sam Peter was or John Ruiz was.

They were much more dangerous than Frankie Randall or Greg Haugen.

 

Very false. Chavez had an excellent defense.

 

He wasn't bad. But he did get hit. Toney had a radar.

Apply the Hopkins Test:

{and I know how we dislike sterotypes around here }

How Many SLICK BLACK FIGHTERS did Chavez take on and beat?

And Toney?

Toney passes that test. Chavez does not.


Or, if you want to split hairs, Toney passes it better.

 

Taylor is arguably better than any 'slick black fighter' Toney beat.

 

Except he chose not to fight slick. He chose not to box........at all. He fought dumb- and effectively won- it required - and this is putting it politely- the most remarkable intervention in sports history- to turn that affair in Chavez favour.

Taylor did the worst thing he could have done and but for Richard Steele- and lets face it, Don King- he gets the W.

I don't take away the damage Chavez did, but it was Taylor that won that fight for him.

And, as I say, even at that.......it requires an "intervention".

 

This is daft and full of double standards.

Taylor 'fought slick' almost the whole time. He just also happened to have a high workrate. Even still, the exact same criticism can be applied to Nunn in his fight vs Toney. Furthermore, Toney was almost as far behind as Chavez. IIRC, I had Toney winning three rounds in ten, and Chavez winning three in eleven.

Calling it the greatest intervention in sports history is - to put it politely - a stretch. If it were ten seconds earlier, there'd be no controversy at all. Taylor looked fucked. Waving it off was no crime. The sequence Chavez put together in the thirty-fifth minute, if anything, is to be commended.

The measuring stick of who beat more 'slick black fighters' is ridiculous.

 

Chavez and it's not really all the close. Toney might have shown some more slick defensive moves fighting in the pocket but that's when he focused on becoming a counter-puncher. A pressure fighter who rarely takes a step back is nearly always going to get hit more than boxers utilizing a different style. And for all of Toney's defensive brilliance he's completely punch drunk for a fighter supposedly so hard to hit.

People who don't speak Spanish would probably understand Julio more than JT speaking English.

 

Agreed with Irish. The Taylor stoppage was disgraceful. Credit to Chavez for making it happens, but Taylor beat the count and wasnt out of it enough to justify a stoppage

 

I don't get your first point. Top 5 wins has a lot to do with greatness. And two of chavez top five wins are controversial to say the least.

 

Which two? Randall and Taylor? No more inconclusive than Toney's over Reggie and Nunn IMO. In fact, Toney's win over McCallum is probably more controversial than Chavez's over Randall.

Anyway, my point is pretty clear. Top five is very important, but Toney's isn't better than Chavez's enough to overshadow the difference in consistency.

 

But that's just it. There wasn't 10 seconds. There were 2. Barely enough time to restart the fight.

Chavez hadn't ended a fight winning blow all night. He wasn't likely to do it in 2 seconds.

 

He did ten seconds before.

 

Nah. Now that IS circuitous.

And even IF he did, why did he land it? Cos a guy far ahead on the cards was still acting like he needed a KO to win. Like he still had something to prove.

 

'Better' is open to debate, I guess. I'd rather watch Toney in full flow than Chavez as we've all got our preferences and biases when it comes to style. He was a bit easier on the eye and had things you can't teach, and when he was flowing he looked like he was doing it all off the cuff. Chavez on the other hand was more well-drilled and regimented - but that doesn't mean his methodical closing down and short body hooks were any less brilliant or effective than Toney's sharp countering and evasive moves.

I think amongst some boxing fans, stylists like Toney sometimes get more of a pass than 'fighters' like Chavez because there seems to be more of an element of brinksmanship in how they fight, in having that confidence to rely on the intangibles and invite the other guy to open up. Makes the level of skill seem higher because they appear to be working to finer margins. But at the end of the day Toney, just like Chavez, had his kryptonite and styles he was always likely to struggle against as we saw quite a few times, so the idea of him being 'better' is hardly set in stone even if you're of that persuasion.

But anyway, better is overrated - it's all about being greater and Chavez definitely has that one in the bag here.

 

Quality as usual, Chris.

 

This is it. I think a lot of people answer the question as if they were themselves being asked "Who would you rather less face, or who would you rather be like"....

I'd want no part of Toney and I'd like to have his skills.

Yet I look at Chavez and think I could come closer to emulating his style or dealing with it.

 

Toney draw against McCallum was a lot more conclusive than Chavez against Randall. And no, theres a world of difference between coming back and koing a guy in the 11th vs getting a very controversial stoppage with 2 seconds left

 

I said Toney's win, not the draw. I've seen far more debate about who won their second fight (and it's very much arguable, since plenty of people do, that McCallum won the first) than I have about the Randall rematch.

And no, not really. I fail to see much difference. Both are come from behind KOs, and the one that's controversial shouldn't be.

 

Your first point is simply not true. Eye on the scorecard has a much much higher controversy rating for Chavez randall 2 than toney Mccallum 2


As for your second, i find it.frankly bizarre, so ill agree to.disagree

 

About the Taylor KO, I’ve never seen this one as controversial. Taylor was done, no doubt about it in my mind. The only question is whether a ref has to take time left into account or not when he decides if a fighter can continue. I don’t believe it should be taken into account. The only important question is whether the fighter is fit to continue or not. In this case, I feel Taylor was done. He didn’t look like a fighter that believed he could take more either.

 

I find it very hard to take Eye on the Ring seriously here given those percentages. 91% controversy rating is ridiculous. If 9/10 people thought Chavez shouldn't have gotten the win, then I've got a pet lion called Marbles. I've seen far more outrage about the decisions in Toney vs McCallum than I have Randall-Chavez.

I don't what the difference is, or what's bizarre about it. Both were way down on the cards, but both were grinding their guys down. They both scored brutal KDs and it were waved it off. The only difference I can see, is that Toney's happened about five minutes earlier in the fight.

Furthermore, what is your point in all of this? Do you think Toney is greater?

 

Eye has it's .limit, but its pretty much the closest thing that we have to a stats on this. And to be honest, i havent seen a lot of person on forums claiming JCC deserved the win

I'm not sure Toney was greater, but i think it's a lot closer than most are saying

 

What if there is nothing to "continue"?