If James Toney was fully dedicated

Toney as a heavyweight is extremly over rated. If he was dedicated enough to cut down to cruiser he could have been the greatest fighter ever of that weight class though.

At heavy he would get KO'd by the likes of Wlad or Vitali and would even be outboxed by a prime Chris Byrd.

 

Good God, imagine Toney of the Jirov fight in with Adamek. Instant classic.

 

Toney showed flashes of discipline all through his career. James weighed over 200lbs before he even started his boxing career, he was a fat kid. He lost more than 40lbs to compete at MW, and he ballooned up in weight all the time between bouts. He had to have some discipline to lose weight before fights during all these years he was competing as a MW/SMW. Well it didn't work out some times, and we all know that nothing good came of it (Roy Jones, Thadzi...). James also got himself in shape again to compete at CW after his lay-off in 1998, where he reportedly weighed a 260lbs. So Toney had discipline, in spurts, but he never had the dedication to stay disciplined over longer periods of time.

 

I don't think a dedicated Toney would weigh over 168. To bulk up to heavy and remain dedicated is very hard to do naturally. If he were to roid up over 200lbs, then I would no longer consider him dedicated.

 

I agree, in my opinion Toney is the most naturally gifted boxer from MW upwards of the past 25 years. Even more gifted than Roy Jones (who was much more athletic tho). Toney is kind of like a fat version of Pernell Whitaker.

 

IF wlad klit had an iron chin
IF mayweather had huge KO power
IF tyson had a brain
IF Jermaine Taylor could run a marathon

IF IF IF IF....... that **** does not matter :rofl

 

He didn't **** any of his talent away.He ate it away.

 

I agree about Wlad, he would likely beat any version of Toney, but Vitali IMO is no where near as skilled as Wlad, which is why Byrd did much better against him, as for Byrd outboxing a motivated Toney in 03, no it wouldn't happen Toney is way more skilled than Byrd, even when he showed up fat as hell against Ruiz he gave a boxing lesson, toney is better than Byrd.

 

Why not? Fighters are supposed to go by the rules and do everything with legal supplements if they choose to use them, steroids are clearly not the case and by using them it seems like the fighter thought he needed them to get his goal done. I think Toney would've beat Ruiz without steroids, he shouldn't have used them.

 

Toney has no chance to beat Vitali, Vlad, Valouev, Chagaev, Dimitrenko, Boytsov, etc.

 

Toney would have very good change to beat Chagaev and Valuev even today. Haven’t see enough Boytsov and Dimitrenkos matches, to evaluate how those matches would go. I doubt they would leave Toney no change tough.

2003 version of Toney would outclass those guys and give Wladimir and Vitali very tough challenge.

 

How did he deal with Byrd's head movement? He would miss a lot of shots and land some too. Peter landed shots on Toney, Wlad is far accurate than Peter.

Wlad doesn't have to land a lot to win, just more than Toney and he would easily do that since Toney cannot get inside a 6'6 fighter, is is simply to slow and it was never his style.

 

The 2003 version gets easily beaten by Dimitrenko and I doubt he would beat Valuev today. Chagaev is 6'1 and needed every bit of reach to land head shots on Valuev, Toney is 5'9.

 

If Holyfield and Ruiz could confuse Valuev I’m sure Toney could. Toney dominated both of those guys while Valuev won controversial decisions.
How the hell is Valuev going to hit Toney?

I doubt Dimitrenko is that good but we will see. Defeating Krasnigi was good victory but how will he do against world class opponents?