Where would you rate James Toney as an ATG? + Why?

nobody sees him as the best ever. he is top 50, maybe top 75, accept it.

 

Toneys a top 20 atg imo and heres why


toney cut his way though the middleweight division and even though micheal nunn was boxing the **** out of him, toney caught up with him and beat a great undefeated fighter :happy

toney continued to show his undoubted pedigree with life and death split decisions over modern day assassin sosa and johnson, with toney going on to have a savage double header against the wonderfull sanderline williams. not only did toney earn a draw in their 1st encounter, he went and shut up any doubters by winning a rematch :deal

more success was to follow at 160, with toney slugging it out with the legendary dave tiberi. most people thought toney lost to tiberi but **** them, toney won another split decision confirming himself as a modern day great :nono

toney moved up and transformed the 168 scene scene, who could forget toneys trademark performances against iran barkley. forget that barkley previously got stopped by nigel benn in 1 round and then lost to a shot 135lb fighter in duran before fighting toney, this was toney at his best, stood in the pocket with that unforgivable slick counter punching style, combined with oodles of delicious lateral movement.

toney didn't rest on that win as champion, he cut through a host of death row challengers that won the respect of even the harshest critics, household names like (9-3-1) chavers, (11-9-1) thomas, (25-9) garcia, (10-10) prather, (35-5-1) thornton, (27-4-1) hembrick, (11-6-1) durham, (35-5-2) williams were dispatched as toney beat a path down to roy jones door :blood

then in the big unification fight with jones, toney had a struggle making weight for the biggest fight of his career, so it doesn't matter that he lost every round and looked like ****, history shows that fight didn't even matter :bart

toney moved up again and the 2 griffin fights that followed at 175 were roberies, toney ****ed that midget up real bad, and the thadzi (28-8-1) loss came because those lame mother****ing sanctioning bodies never even allowed james to juice in those ****en fights :fire

then came the phenominal win against the greatest european fighter of all time - JIROV. jirov had proved himself in the professional ranks with a host of wins against genuine hall of famers, and toney went and tamed this beast, systematically breaking jirov down with that well oiled slick counter punching style.

then checkout the win against prime heavyweight all time great holyfield, **** all the haterzzzz who claim that toney was juicing as he moved up and was exposed when steroid testing became mandatory in american based boxing matches in 2002, all those test results were a deliberate set up try and blacken the good name of james toney and its not as if steroids do anything anyway, they actually hinder a boxer with all that increased speed and power gained :huh

as if the this G'ness wasn't enough, toney became a cross over star when he went over to the MMA and ****ed up a whole host of big names, boosting the image of boxing throughtout the whole world like some kind of badass ambassador for the sport :smoke

theres always gonna be haterz on here but the most knowledgable esb posters will have toney in their top 20 ATG lists, in 30 years from now when people begin to appreciate what they had, Toney could well figure in many top 10s :bbb

 

:rofl:rofl:rofl

 

He is an ATG overeater and thats all.

 

I'd like to put Toney around #50 just based on what he did going from MW-HW. I don't care who he fought at HW, that is an insane jump in weight. He has some blemishes regarding the roids, but RJJ, Holyfield, and many other all time greats do too.

 

People are taking too much away from Toney with the PED use, there are at least a dozen atg's that have been caught using them for various reasons and don't get as much **** for it

 

Somewhere in the same vicinity as Bernard Hopkins in the top 100.

 

How many have been busted twice?

 

He's nowhere in the vicinity of Hopkins.

 

And why is that? Being busted for AAS? Or is your thinking along the lines of resume and skill/ability?

Hopkins accomplishments in the way of doing great things at an old age are remarkable, but his resume certainly doesn't stand out in comparison to Toney. Hopkins has the dominance, consistency, longevity to go along with a solid resume. Toney has a better collection of wins over superior opposition (note: not bigger names, but better fighters at the time he fought them), accomplishments at more weight classes, but lacks the consistency, dominance, and longevity at the top of the sport that Hopkins does. I don't see one being terribly higher than the other, even though I would ultimately put Hopkins slightly higher at this point.

My .02, anyways.

 

Toney has multiple losses in his prime to some very mediocre fighters and Hopkins record defences of his MW title and eventully becoming the first full uindisputed champion is better then Toney's disasterous higher weight reign especially when you factor in how many times he's been caught juicing. There's not even a need to mention anything Hopkins did above 160.

 

somewhere between 110-80

 

At what point do you stop rating someone as an ATG? like I said before I always thought an ATG list was the greatest 100.

 

Not rating him anywhere. He has ATG skills but nothing worth bragging about for a resume. Two weight division champion, cheater and loud mouth. Nothing else. He's definitely HOF material but not an ATG. The move to UFC shits on him even more.