He is perhaps a turning point in history that didnt quite happen. He came so close to closing the book on the era of superheavyweights. He should have been the unified and ring magazine champion WBA and WBC.
One thing i never really see mentioned is how his win over Ruiz put into perspective Jones "legendary" win, as it was touted at the time. So great all it took was a few years and a fat out of shape washed up cruiserweight to repeat it..
He is the big "might have been" of the last decade. The day he fought John Ruiz I obviously asumed that he had won and that was it. At that moment half of the heavyweight title belts were in the hands of former middleweights, guys who had been middles into their mid 20s. This would have served my arguments rater well.
Funny how so many of Toney's fights are close calls or flat out robberies, as already mentioned... But in the same vein he's an ex-middleweight who been unbelievably competitive at the top of the HW food chain, and done some equally impressive things like beat a then undefeated Nunn.
Toney should be considered among the best fighters of his era. He was one of the most gifted inside fighters making good use of angles and head movement. I think he let himself go and didn't train as hard during his middleweight years and losing to Roy Jones Jr didn't help his pysche. That's a rematch that Toney went as far as to say that if he could only fight one fighter in a rematch and retire, it would be Jones Jr. To this day he still talks about Jones and fighting him one more time. Toney fooled around in that fight and tried to play Jones' game rather than stay focused and box like he should have. I remember people mentioning his same in the same sentence with Sugar Ray Robinson, Hagler, Leonard, Hearns and Monzon. Toney was that good in his early career.
Very close , not sure , i may go with B-Hop though, the subtle tricks might just outweigh Toney's deep bag of special ones