Depends on which facet of his game you mean. You could say Barkley, Williams, or Jirov for his all-around best.
1.The first McCallum fight (no way was that fight a draw) 2.Barkley Jirov may have been Toney's second best win after Nunn, but the cruiserweight Toney was not peak Toney, so that rules that one out of this particular discussion IMO. You could argue either Barkley or McCallum I was the best Toney. The Barkley performance was flawless, but McCallum was a far better opponent. Whatever floats your boat between those two. I know many would disagree (primarily because it is one of the most misunderstood and underrated performances of all-time), but personally I would include Nunn as one of the best performances by any fighter across the 1990s. People continually make the silly mistake of saying "Nunn was winning at a canter then got caught by a lucky punch" - wrong. So, so wrong. Toney had dominated the last three rounds before the 'big punch' connected. He had, much like Chavez did against Taylor though I would argue even more effectively so, hung in there through some tough rounds against a fantastic boxer, gradually worked his way into the fight, never lost belief or composure, and then broke down and devastated his opponent for a superb and well-deserved victory.
I think Nunn just ran out of gas because he was in crap cokedout shape by that time, look at the half assed gift performance in the COrdoba fight directly after and you see where his head was at. He didn't look in good shape against Starling or Curry either but, they were either too shot or too light hitting to take advantage of it. Starling was hitting him at will at times with the right.Toney came on strong as Nunn slowed, not because he'd being doing a Chavez on him the whole time imo.I guess i take the middle ground as far as that fight goes, Nunn wasn't dominating and caught by a lucky punch either as you rightly say.
Toneys ability to beat guys down late in fights was impressive really and he did it throughout the weight divisions. What are his worst fights? Johnson at middle Thadzi at LH Peter at heavy
I'd put Tiberi before Johnson. johnson was a good fighter at that time and gave a strong performance.Tiberi was just crap.
Yeah. Getting outboxed so badly by a one-trick pony that people actually hailed Peter as having "greatly improved skills" (when in fact, they had indeed improved but not by that much) is pretty inexcusable. That was the moment that should have shamed him into retirement, if not the Ruiz fiasco before it...or accepting a gift win over unspectacular Fres Oquendo the year after... Imagine how revered he'd be had he packed it in after Jirov?
Or just stayed in shape. The guy has tremendous skills, certainly enough to make a lot of noise in a weak heavy divison, and had mutiple chances to fight on the major networks, against top oppositin and he cant even get himself into fighting shape. :huh Its mind boggling really, when thats your profession and you can make a lot of money at it. Just pure ignorance. Hes gearing up for another chance to fool everyone he can maintain his fitness as we speak.
The fight that showcases the whole arsenal of James Toney the best is the Barkley fight I think. But Barkley was made to order for Toney, so if you want the biggest accomplishment of his career I would guess it is either the win over Nunn or Jirov. The best 30 seconds of James Toney's career though, is without a doubt the first 30 seconds against Barkley