The point of MMA was to find out which martial art would be the best. You need to be able to take your opponent down, strike and submit/choke out your opponent to be a good fighter. Why shouldn't Randy do what he's good at (wrestling), take Toney down and submit him like he did? Why the hell would he be stupid enough to stand there and box with a professional boxer? Wouldn't that make it a boxing match? It's MMA for ****s sake. Why do people keep saying stupid things like "Oh he should have stood up and striked with him like a man" Why should he? He done what he's the best at and made Toney look like a *****.
You answered your own question. A lot of people were pulling for James Toney the other night, and to see him get humbled and embarrassed must have been hard to swallow. I'm not advocating their behavior, but I can almost understand why they have reacted the way they have. They are sore, I would be too if I was a James Toney enthusiast. This type of childish behavior isn't exclusive to the Boxing fan. I saw comparable things being said by MMA fans when Sylvia was destroyed by Mercer.
It's irrefutable in my mind. The fickle nature of the average Boxing fan may cause there to be some confusion, but Toney has excelled.
In the event I was to throw a name out now, I'd expect to be shot down. Toney would probably lose in an Octagon against a striker too, but I ask myself two questions. Did James Toney want to make a legitimate go at being a Mixed Martial Artist? I say no, his weight would indicate that he didn't train as hard as he could have, and his inability to defend even the weakest of take-downs suggests he didn't work on very much in training camp in regards to take-down defense. Was Dana White more concerned with opening up new avenues for the UFC by introducing a Boxer to the sport, or was he trying to make an example out of James Toney? Probably the latter, he matched him up with one of the greatest Mixed Martial Arts of the last decade, and who's primarily a wrestler and known for his discipline. There was no chance he was going to be defeated by a Boxer with zero MMA experience and Dana White surely knew this. All the TS is saying is that everyone would have probably benefited had Toney been matched with someone who was going to stand. The crowd and worldwide audience would have got more for their money, and James Toney would have most likely been much more competitive, and thus encouraged to invest more time in the sport.
He has indeed - imagine what he could of done if he had stopped piling on the weight and came in at 210?
I agree with what you are saying it is just in reality the matchup was never going to be easy. Toney really set the tone with his smack talk - if Dana had not offered an ATG then those same spinners would be spouting some other complaint.
He was a beautiful specimen as a Middlerweight during the early nineties. He fought great opposition in Michael Nunn and Mike McCallum, and saw them off accordingly. His performance against Iran Barkley is about as aesthetically pleasing as the sport gets. It's easy to forget just how talented Toney has been through his career, and the great things he has achieved when a mic is put in front of his face, but all of that drama is secondary.
Of course. It's all agenda-driven nonsense at the end of the day. There are many Boxing fans who respect and enjoy UFC as a sport and as a spectacle, and who have nothing bad to say about it even after Toney's demise. We shouldn't generalize all Boxing fans.
The crappiest UFC level "pure" striker, kicks Toney in his leg for 2 rounds then ground and pounds him. If Toney was "serious", he would have started training bjj, wrestling, and submission defense 10 years ago. This did exactly what Dana expected it to. Energized the UFC fan base playing off of a BS rivalry. Unfortunately, it also drove a further wedge in a "sister" art form that could have served to provide the UFC with even more exciting fighters.
