H2H: Peak James Toney v Peak Joe Calzaghe

Calzaghe likes to square up and throw alot of punches. Toney is imo one of the best counterpuncher in boxing history.

Toney by KO

 

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you're reading far too much into it, roy jones took toney to the cleaners that night . whats this about the same tactics, i said he would frustrate toney like jones did, and win. you're making out i mean calzaghe is like a poor mans roy jones, not what i meant.

 

In a nutshell I'll take Calzaghe because Toney was too limited IMO, he just gets way too overrated by everyone who likes to marvel at his Philly Shell defense and slick skills against open, come-forward brawlers like Iran Barkley who play directly into his hands. Nobody takes into account his inconsistency or lack of real versatility. He lacked the footwork to beat the great out-boxers and movers. The best he ever performed was against McCallum at MW, and he never really conclusively beat him in either of their first two fights. Back to Calzaghe/Toney, both have certain advantages on each other, but at the end I just think Calzaghe's workrate and off-putting style would allow him to take a Close Decision, even with Toney landing the cleaner blows.

The Jones/Toney comparisons are off though, Calzaghe even at his best was a class below Jones, as was Toney. But, I would like to say that the Calzaghe of the late 90's was arguably at his best. The version that beat Eubank might be the best version I've seen.

 

calzaghe is excellant at unleashing flurriesof punches and getting out of the way of the counter sharpish . call it slapping if you like but toney would not like the volume of punches coming in at all angles. toney is easily frustrated and would be forced into mistakes.
no one, not james toney or anyone else fought at the same pace as prime calzaghe.

i'm not saying it wouldn't be close, in fact toney winning would not surprise me, its just like i said, calzaghe at his best looked unbeatable

 

the best i've seen calzaghe was against lacy. yeah lacy was limited but that night joe put on a masterclass, a performance all aspiring boxers should be made to watch.

 

It was his most performance certainly.

 

Griffin was a scrub?

He beat a prime Toney twice, and was outlanding a prime Roy Jones over 8 rounds of boxing, something Calzaghe would never have been able to do.

Thadzi fought a past-it Toney, James acutally failed to make the LHW limit for that fight because he didn't train properly.

Toney wins this fight via late rounds TKO.

 

it would be a hard close fight for both men.

you only have to be old enough to watch the prime middleweight toney fight to know that.

168 toney was not his prime , his workrate and footspeed had noticably decreased from the middleweight version of himself.

toney had very close fights .

nunn toney scored a ko to win , he needed to

nunn in a life or death struggle with the treacle slow barkely in the fight before was easily outslicking toney, his southpaw style giving toney fits until nunn gassed in about round 8 or 9 and toney came from behind to get the ko he needed to win.

mccallum a great light middle and decent middle scored a draw

tiberi simply threw leather at toney to such an extent they called a political debate in america about the result from memory .

johnson again another soutpaw gave toney all he could handle toney winning by split decsion in a good fight.

trying to remember who else

barkley and dewitt had been demolished by benn .

if nunn/mccallum/johnson/tiberi

could give prime toney all he could handle why would many consider a calzaghe type fighter to be such a gimmee for toney in this period.

calzaghe a southpaw like johnson and nunn and a high volume puncher like tiberi , if you look at it objectivle, calzaghe has all the traits that have always historically given james toney a hard fight.

 

I thought it was a very clear win, I don't know how you get off saying it wasn't. He struggled at times because he was facing an unorthodox and skilled fighter and hadn't had the experience at his level, but he outworked him throughout the fight and was a better athlete around that time than at any other point IMO. He was likely the more skilled overall fighter in the Lacy and Kessler fights though, but by the time he faced Kessler he wasn't the same athlete he used to be.

One thing he doesn't have on par with even the old Hopkins, movement, which would be key here. And since when did Toney ever have great stamina or fitness in the first place?

 

if pacman is the norm and 84 is his year of birth he would have been 7 years old when the timeframe we are discussing took place.

 

What if Calzaghe decided to fight on the move and use his jab and box him from the outside, only coming in at certain points? Then it would be up to Toney to switch tactics, which he wasn't very good at. That's basically how I see it going.