Now, obviously he only has two notable wins: over an already-struggling-with-weight Toney, in his last fight at (ostensibly) 175; and a stoppage over Iceman John Scully - which distinction he holds alone among the latter's 10 career conquerors. Every other halfway decent fighter he faced, it seems, either won every round or stopped him. Was he then, I gather, just a crude entertaining brawler? How did Toney manage to lose to someone like this, while still reasonably close to his prime?
He really wasn't anything special. He was supposed to be past his prime when he pulled off that upset of Toney. That earned him a shot at Dariusz's title, which was his "last hurrah." I didn't see that fight, but I've heard he gave DM a decent fight before being stopped late. As for why Toney lost to him... well, many people thought he lost to Tiberi too, so I don't think that's really all that much of a surprise. A comination of Toney's limitations and probable lack of training.
James Toney DID lose to Tiberi...one of the, if not the worst robberies the sport has ever seen..surely the worst I've ever seen. I don't know about the Thadzi fight, but I saw the Toney-Tiberi fight...Tiberi was royally screwed in broad daylight.
It's one of the era's all time lows as far as bad scorecards go, I still can't watch it without getting seriously pissed off. Poor Tiberi looked devastated. A lot of the Toney arselickers seem to just conveniently brush it off as anomaly on his record. I've never seen the Thadzi fight and so cannot comment on it. Thadzi's record however was average to say the least outside of the aforementioned win.
So the first Peter fight was perhaps a bit of cosmic justice? :think It would certainly change the landscape of Toney's career...being dominated, as accounts would indicate he was against Tiberi, at that point would probably diminish one's confidence a bit more than having your cherry popped by a guy everyone knew from "go" would be HOF, and then two very bellyacheable losses to Griffin. How this would have affected young James' mentality or subsequent performances can't be determined...but of interesting note it seems he did admit having lost that fight, just this year. Fat lot of good that does Dave now, I suppose. :conf Thing is, it isn't as though Toney wasn't still capable of good (if perhaps not great) performances at that stage (the Thadzi fight)...Jirov-Ruiz was a pretty solid stretch (his last solid stretch, actually). Was the weight just killing him?
And I know he preceded the YT era by at least a good half a decade, but why is there not a SHRED of footage on the web? He was in a couple of high-profile fights, as noted. :?
Thadzi was phyiscally very strong and could fight Ok in short spurts. He won one round against DM where he tried to go for the kill, after that he was a easy target. Toney is overrated in some ways on this board. He did extremely well against certainy typed of fighters and not so well against others. He had some luck at 160 and a ton of luck against Tiberi, struggled with Griffin (although these were not clear losses) and Thadzi beat him fair and square. I really wonder how Toney would have fared against DM or Maske, who would beat the Thadzis and Tiberis 10 out of 10.
Awesome to see someone start a thread about Drake. Great guy and very good fighter. And a local guy, from Randolph, MA.
I’m a big Toney fan and he no doubt lost to Tiberi. I do wish Tiberi had not retired and taken the rematch offer. But I understand his frustration.
I remember the Ambassador from whatever African country Thadzi came from writing to boxing news to bollock them for saying his win over Tony was a fluke !!! It was a big deal to them.
Toney was outhustled in a lethargic performance. I've heard it was a bad decision, though. Toney was his own worst enemy.
