How did you score James Toney's close or controversial fights

The truth is that most of these weren't even controversial except Tiberi and Oquendo because James clearly lost both.

 

Toney was a lot slower at heavyweight, his body was slightly too heavy because of his height, his body didn`t look right at heavy.

 

McCallum had a more active guard than Toney in their first fight, he used head movement before Toney would punch whereas Toney was reacting with his head movement instead of staying off the centre line.

 

Its not just about his class or his mouth. He had to have the right guy in front of him to look like a throwback. Otherwise he was nothing special. It wasnt just an issue of discipline. He just wasnt as good as his fans insist.

 

Fair point I suppose, but on the flipside, to lack discipline and training dedication, and still beat the guys he did or run close others... says a lot about how good he was imo

 

I agree and disagree.

Isn't it usually the case that the great fighters look at their absolute best versus fighters that either aren't on the same level or whose style was made completely for them to look phenomenal against.

Toney's most complete performance for me is versus Barkley - a guy who was made to make him look good. Replace Leonard with Hearns in Montreal and Duran likely gets completely starched.

I think you would struggle to name many fighters between MW and LHW over the last 30 years that had more skills, were as smooth and fought as relaxed on both the defensive and offensive end.

I think he was inconsistent and that's largely down to his lack of discipline as an athlete blessed with his skills. If he wanted it, he could have been greater but when at his best, he was very impressive?

 

Not sure what you are trying to say. According to punch stats Mc Callum landed only 3 more punches in their first fight. Toney landed many more hard blows. On that basis, I am not sure Mike was more effective defensively.

 

Not exactly. Unless you want to call victories over the likes of Nunn, Mc Callum or Johnson nothing special. But I agree Toney looked best when a guy tried to fight him

 

Agree with you... and the right guy was not the Great Roy Jones, Jr!

 

Exactly, your head is as important as your physical gifts in this sport and that's if you believe that Toney's only problem was a lack of discipline. I don't. I don't think you can blame him taking guys lightly or not training hard on every single close fight or loss he was in. That gives him way too much credit. He had a conservative style and liked guys to come to him. If you threw a lot of punches (Tiberi) or boxed from the outside (Nunn, McCallum, Jones, Griffin) you could give him problems and/or beat him. If you put a guy who was always sort of limited but really aggressive like Barkley in front him Toney would look like a superhero all day long. But he had to have that. Im not saying he was unskilled. But unskilled and being this near unbeatable boxing genius are two ends of the spectrum and Toney fell somewhere well within that grey area in between. His fans just don't see that. If you say Toney wasn't some all time great monster they hear "Toney sucked." No, but there were a lot of guys who would have beaten him.

 

This is how you use an active guard.

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He was far better vs McCallum than he was against Nunn and Johnson.

 

Agreed

 

Toney's greatness is hard to asses. He had some really good wins like Nunn, McCallum and Jirov. And Peters and Rahman if you feel, like I do, that he won those. But the fact is that he struggled more than you think an ATG should do with the likes of Johnson, Griffin, Thadzi and, especially, Tiberi. And he was absolutely clowned by RJJ. No shame in losing to him, but a still developing Hopkins was definitely more competitive. Hell, a shot McCallum was more competitive. I also think Toney lost the rematch to a 36-year old McCallum.

In fact, the best fighter he easily beat was Barkley. So while Toney was extremely easy on the eye, it is hard what to make of his resume.

 

Good thread

Off the top of my head I thought he clearly beat Sosa, Won by 1 round or draw with Johnson, Beat McCallum, I actually thought he either won or his fight with Tiberi was even, I thought he beat Griffin both times, Thadzi was about even could've went either way, Rahman was close could've went either way same with first fight with Peter. I thought Oquendo beat him.