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

I don't see how you score the Nunn fight if you have him winning every round. I had Nunn ahead by one or two rounds going into the 11th. But, as I posted previously, I never made a comment about the performance and never used the word "impressive". I said it was a very good win. That's all. It certainly was a win, on that I think we can agree. And since it was one of the top p4p rated guys, I think we also can say it was very good.

As for McCallum, that mostly rests on whether one thinks he beat Mike or not. Because I think Mike still was a very good fighter (for the first two fights) and beating him therefore would be a very good win. If one blocks out the pretty useless Lederman, I can't see how Toney can be given the rematch. The first one he could have edged, though, even if a draw felt like a good result for such a close fight.

 

Well, Johnson, Tiberi, Griffin and Thadzi weren't great fighters. Good to varying degrees, but not great.

 

When I met him it was when he fought a guy named Charles Oliver in St louis late 90's. He was probably around 190 at that fight and looked pretty solid to me. I agree that he did not look natural when he was fighting at 220 let alone 250 in some of those fights. I just thought he was drained and sluggish against Tiberi due to the weight cut.

 

In response to the doubtings of James Toney IQ in the ring i think of the following as ive heard some trainer say:

Toney has the mechanics well learn on his body and he kn0ws to do all kinds of stuff in the ring, but he never was the finished product according to Bill Miller, he became lazy in using his feet cause he prefered to stand roll,weave and counter. He didnt liked to train his conditioning he preferred to spar most of the time, and finally when his skill didnt finished the job he then would force his handspeed on you relying on that physical talent.

Make it as you want to believe

 

What @META5 said. At his best he was a genuine throwback.

Unfortunately, If I am to be objective, the fights mentioned here...he wasn't at his best. It's his fault and no one else's as to why he performs UP to his best opposition, then looks ordinary against the likes of Tiberi. Few fighters can look so great at times and so ordinary at others than JT.

 

We can agree to disagree. I didnt think he did well, or looked particularly good against Nunn at all barring the exciting finish. Good win. Exciting. TV Highlight stuff. But he had to win in that way. Regardless of how you scored it he was hopelessly behind. He had won one round on one card, two on another, and one on the last card of the completed ten.
Its academic at this point but I keep going back to this disconnect with Toney fans. They conflate that he started landing some punches in the 8th round with him doing well. I completely disagree. Its like they look for things to latch onto. I dont understand it. Same with the guy above who thought Tiberi legitimately lost. I dont think even Toney with his gigantic swelled ego thinks he won that fight. It wasnt even close or hard to score. The idea that Tiberi shouldnt have been scored more points because he was a light puncher is ridiculous. The idea that Toney should get more credit for what he considers heavier punches, which had no effect on Tiberi, is crazy. At the end of the day a fight going to the card is scored on points. Based on every criteria you could score a fight on Toney lost. The idea that you would toss that out in assessing the makeup of a fighter because you "think something was wrong with Toney" is ludicrous. Toney proved throughout his career to be a lazy, unmotivated, underarchiever. It wasnt like the Tiberi fight was some aberration.
If I misconstrued that you were simply talking about "good" wins on paper then so be it (although, again, he didnt beat McCallum on paper the first time). However I did mis-attribute a quote to you based on my perception of what you were saying so for that I apologize. But when you say he had some really good wins, in the context of a discussion about the merits of those wins, I took that to mean "he looked good" i.e. he was impressive in addition to just getting the "W." To that I did not agree.

 

Maybe but thats something to take into consideration when assessing a fighters place in history and his chances head to head. If a fighter is a headcase thats a possible factor in him winning or losing every time out.

 

Im amazed. I never thought it would happen. I agree with Ras. I thought the Jirov fight was super close and the knockdown won it for Toney. When the scores were announced I was shocked. The right guy won but not by the right scores.

 

I agree.

But I don't think Toney was a headcase, rather what most said here. Too lazy, not fully committed to training. And you're right that his place in history (boxingdom!) has to be taken into context; he wasn't consistent.

 

And we know...HE knew it was close when he did a Kolin Kappernick and got down on his knees while the scores were being announced.

Roach also told him in the 11th-- "JT, you blew that round, you let him outhustle you. JT U got to put in on his butt."

JT: "I did huh??? ****!

 

I'm all with you on the Tiberi fight. He lost that clearly and there are very, very few, if any, fighters that are called great that clearly lost to a fighter of Tiberi's quality in their physical prime.

As for Nunn, I only commented on the win. And it wasn't a fluke win for me even, though, I wouldn't be certain that he would replicate it a second time. As for performance... He showed grit and determination in losing just about all of the early rounds to Nunn, but then coming on strong from the 7th onwards. Nunn was a hell of a fighter after all. And the finish was sublime. But, as I said, I would have liked a rematch. Despite the KO, one can't really say that Toney established any clear superiority.

He never beat McCallum clearly imo, so that's a hard one to judge. Mike was aging but Toney was still developing. McCallum said as much himself. I think Toney should have done better in the rematch, though. You'd think that the younger fighter would have been the one to improve, but IMO McCallum outsmarted Toney with a workmanlike but very professional performance. That's just my opinion, though. Some, like you, have Toney as the winner of that one.

 

I can't see how the Jirov fight was close to some. He was running into Toney's counters all night while mostly missing himself. I wonder if that is another fight Lederman have ruined to the general perception.

It was a tough fight for Toney since Jirov was so inasenly well conditioned and tough and just kept coming, but he actually beat Jirov up.

 

Your comments on Toney are way off

 

Toney nicked the first Peter fight and should have got the decision since an immediate rematch was ordered. He actually did better against Peter than Wladimir Klitschko did. Wlad had way more trouble with Peter and was forced to hold on for dear life with bear hugging tactics. James Toney used boxing skill to outbox Peters.