Could James Toney ever have touched Roy Jones?

Define hard if you could.

 

Well, I think it would have been a bad style match up for Roy.

Frankie was a very good fighter, and he was a southpaw who was 6'2/6'3 with a 77' reach.

I watched their amateur fights a while ago, and you could envisage how it would have played out in the pros.

I think Roy would have had his hands full.

It's a shame the fight never happened though.

 

Yeah. I know Johnny, and his sons, his wife, and his in laws the Stevens's. Les Stevens fought Jimmy Young ( lost on points ) in April 74, who 7 months later drew with Earnie Shavers, then went on to beat George Foreman. Les's ( I hope I've got the right word ) belated ( she passed away ) wife Aggie was a Collins. Johnny Collins was her nephew. Lovely people. Johnny and Chris Finnegan were a great double act when they met up at shows. They would " mock " fight and start calling each other names like " you fvcking butted me " or " you hit me so low I thought about joining a choir " but all in good fun. The punters loved it, they thought they might see 2 older guys going at it. But I'll tell you this, Johnny ended up a wealthy man, whereas Chris hit hard times. Johnny ALWAYS ended up following Chris to the k****y and giving him a lump of money.

 

Wow!

Fascinating stuff mate.

It was a pleasure reading that.

I thought it was you who'd mentioned him.

I've only asked, because I'm fascinated with the traveller life and with bare knuckle boxing. I bought Jimmy Stockin's book - On the cobbles, almost 15 years ago, and I must have read it about 30 times. I know Johnny's mentioned in it, and he was very well respected.

I've also got Bartley Gorman's book - King of the Gypsies, and I swear I must have read it 40-50 times. I also visited his grave a few months ago in Rocester.


Thanks for the great post.

:good