He was underdog! And beat the living **** out of Iran on technical skill alone, hardly shipping much himself.
Just watched this fight today, an absolutely sublime performance from Toney, he really was a complete fighter in his prime.
Maybe the best Toney ever looked in his career was the night he beat Iran Barkley. Barkley had just won his 3rd world title and was coming off his 2nd win over Tommy Hearns, and Toney just took him apart and battered him.
Good to very good. I voted the latter. Toney looked great, his counter punching was amazing, defense slick as usual, but the stage Barkley was at in his career and the fact that he was tailor-made for Toney prevents me from calling it a "great" win. Despite a great 1992, Barkley had a lot of mileage on him due to his style, had a detached retina before, and also was going back down in weight after winning the LHW title from Hearns and I've heard a few stories about how hard it was for him to drop back down.
good win but pales in comparison to his win over Michael Nunn, the first non Tyson PPV that i watched as a kid. TVKO rocked.
What I really miss about those days, despite the often great undercards on Don King fights, was how easy it was so steal cable. You'd have a stacked card and not even have to pay for it. Now it's $60 for one great matchup and 2 or 3 shitty undercards. A month after Toney-Nunn, there was Quiroga-Anifowoshe, which I heard was only $10 on PPV. That's definitely getting your money's worth.
Edwin Rosario had one around that time, couldn't get my dad to pay, so i listened to it through the scrambled channel! Once in awhile you could make out the fighters. LOL.
+1 But even if we were talking about a better version of Barkley, this win can't be considered 'great', imo Barkley was never truly 'great' himself. A very-very good win and a flawless performance by Toney nevertheless.