Absolutely love them both. I feel like McCallum took more pride in his craft and always came to fight in shape whereas JT didn't always prepare like he should. James was probably more naturally gifted but to me, McCallum was the superior ring technician.
All around - McCallum Talent - Toney Instinct - Toney IQ - McCallum In fighting - Toney Footwork - Equal
Toney for me, especially in terms of greatness. Going up to HW with from MW with as much success as he did was special, and not something you see often nowadays. Skill wise it's probably as equal as you can get, and it showed in there fights.
Both guys sort of fall short of real greatness. All time greatness. I would give Toney the edge in his wins against Nunn and Barkley and Williams.
H2H and achievement wise, they'd be right next to each other in any good p4p list. Toney edges it for me though.
Damn, McCallum is so underrated and he was very consistent most of his career. His prime/best division was junior middleweight though as head-to-head I can see him beat almost anyone (including Hearns, Norris, Trinidad etc.). Great skills, great chin, great heart. He lost a little something when he moved up to middleweight but even way past prime he won a light-heavyweight title. James Toney had a great career and did some great things, but he could be horribly inconsistent and had a lot of bad training/diet habits. Toney fought McCallum twice and noted that McCallum was a great boxer. If you know Toney he doesn't like to acknowledge anyone's skills so McCallum truly stood out to him. I wish McCallum had opportunities to fight the Big 4 during his prime (Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran) but they smartly avoided him. With the right promoter/tv contract, he could've been a lot more known and acknowledged today.
Two of my all-time favourites. Should say that, in my opinion, Toney clearly deserved to beat Mike in that first fight (the best of their series) and might well have stopped him if he'd had another twenty seconds left at the end of the final round. In their trilogy, it's clear who the better man was. But of course there's more at play here, given that McCallum was 12 years older and peaked at 154, whereas Toney peaked at 168. If there are two guys pretty evenly-matched in skill, it's no real surprise that the younger, fresher and naturally bigger guy is going to come out on top. Toney at his absolute best was the better pure fighter for my money - when he was focussed, fit and in form, he could slip in to a gear that McCallum didn't quite possess (though McCallum was still a brilliant technician, don't get me wrong!). I'd say Toney's highest peaks are a little higher than McCallum's, but the downside is that he also slumped to some pretty embarrassing lows which never befell Mike. McCallum essentially had a full decade of world-class consistency at championship level - a much longer, steadier peak. On the other hand, Toney was outstanding from 1991 to 1994 but after being humbled by Jones basically became a forgotten man between the ages of 26 to 34 (which in theory should have been amongst the best of his career), and didn't really start putting his reputation back together until that classic against Jirov in 2003. So it's McCallum's longer, more drawn-out consistency against Toney's peaks and troughs. But I'd give this one to Toney, just. I think he proved himself the better all-rounder and could excel against a wider variety of styles. Both guys aged well and put in some exemplary performances when well past their peaks, but Toney did so often sporting a spare tyre around his gut and giving away huge natural size advantages. Fair enough, he only has himself to blame to the Ruiz NC, but not too long later he clearly beat Peter (first fight) despite starting out at 160 and without any decent training - a full fifteen years after he was beating Sosa, Nunn, Reggie Johnson and boxing a draw with McCallum all within one calendar year in 1991. Easy to laugh at Toney, and he's given us plenty of ammunition to do that over the years...But it takes a special talent to do that. Could change my mind from day to day, but right now I'd probably give the edge to Lights Out.
Two of my favorite fighters of that era, I love both of their styles. In my estimation, Toney was the better fighter. But he did not become "James Toney" until he fought Mike McCallum. That first fight made James Toney a much better fighter than he had been up to that point.
