I agree with those who rank Toney over Hopkins IMO Toney has a higher and better resume. Hopkins dominated a weak middleweight division for a long time. I am not sure if Hopkins ever beat someone as good as Nunn or Jirov Toney is all time top 50 p4p for me
How is he hard to rank or overrated he was championship caliber from 160-200+ and was never really in danger or hurt in any fight. How many other guys in the history of the sport are capable of replicating that
A hot and cold, undedicated fighter who couldn't beat the very best he faced... and didn't even beat some of the worst he faced.
Those are very impressive achievements, but he never really dominated one weight class and was quite inconsistent. Even at MW he could have had losses against Johnson, Tiberi and McCallum.
And wins against Griffin and Peter. Other than Tiberi, the wins you mentioned were not controversial in the US at the time. Not to mention that Mike was lucky to get a draw in their first fight.
I'm not saying they were controversial, just that they could have gone either way. I had Toney beating Johnson, Griffin and McCallum in the first fight, but they were close. I had him losing against Tiberi and the McCallum rematch.
A true boxer with real skills. He could stand in the pocket and make people miss and then make them pay. Heavy handed enough to get the "Lights out" nickname. Unfortunately he loved food too much. One of the most talented boxers but with the work ethic of a Marciano he could have been top 20.
A personal favourite of mine as I grew up watching him and remember when he was considered to be one of the three best fighters in the game when the other two were a still-undefeated (89-0-1) Julio Cesar Chavez and p4p king Pernell Whitaker. And then it went a bit wrong for a few years. First the loss to Jones burst Toney's bubble of superiority but at least Jones seemed superhuman. His loss to Montell Griffin just seemed like Toney had gone down another level. He drifted for several years as his weight went up (and never really came back down again) but then had his moment of redemption against Jirov which secured a legacy, albeit not quite the one I'd hoped for during his early-mid 90s heyday. Still love him, though.
He's a great, but probably on the lower tier. He was talented, had a great chin, terrific skills etc, but also lazy and perennially drained or overweight. He had some fine wins but also had some shocking performances and results scattered across his career.
Not anywhere as near highly as he would have done had he had an ounce of discipline to keep his face out of the ice box!
Who cares if he didn't dominate a weight class? Mayweather didn't either, neither did tommy hearns and neither did Roy Jones. Reggie Johnson and Mike McCallum were top level opponents who toney beat while he was young. Tiberi was clearly an outlier of a performance. I don't know anyone who uses that fight as any indication of what toney was capable of and what he accomplished. Name me another guy who was top 10 in every weight class from middle to heavy
Toney was an enormous talent, but I have difficulty rating him highly on an ATG list. He could be brilliant one fight, then almost disappear the next.