How do you rate James Toney?

There's not much else that could possibly be said after that gem of a post.

 

Like others, one of my favorites - we are the same age. Watched almost all of his fights as well. If he only he was old enough to have battled Tommy or Hagler, what could have been. I enjoyed watching his aura, his demeanor. He’d step in the ring and you knew you were in for a long night against a superior defensive fighter who you’d likely not hurt. It must have been incredibly frustrating to battle this man.

 

Extremely talented, inconsistent, old school skills, incredible chin, big stylistic strengths but also big stylistic weaknesses.

Definite weaknesses against slick busy boxers but definite strengths against come forward and straight forward fighters.

He should have fought at 160 (to a lesser extent) and 168 a helluva lot longer and really made a name for himself. Far too little discipline however.

To be controversial (even if sensible) i will say that he and McCallum could have fought 50 times and flattered each other every single time. They were BORN to look great against each other.

Great fighter against the right styles.

 

he wasnt quite there. He did horribly against Jones yet, bested Nunn

 

He never dipped or swayed far from his centre of gravity? If you think so mate

He used to contort his body all over the place what are you talking about
His footwork was very swift if you know what you're looking at. Never would have been able to counter from the positions he did if he had slow footwork.

 

I meant too far from his centre of gravity in that he'd rarely overextend himself and have his upper body in a bad position relative to where his feet were despite using extensive upper body movement. That's good balance coming from a strong base, having your feet underneath you at the right point even when using extensive motion to slip punches and not putting too much weight outside of your equilibrium zone. Like an extendable arm on a crane lifting something heavy but not tipping over.

He usually countered with more success from his trademark positions and with signature moves against the right type of opponent when they came at him and didn't force him to use his feet extensively, either to chase them or quickly skip out of range. Usually just small adjustments, shifts and halfsteps to set himself up without really needing to be overly quick with it.

RJJ, Johnson, Griffin and both Nunn and McCallum at times just to name a few had success against him by turning him and catching him on the hop by being in a better position with their feet to get off first or make him miss. Because they all to differing degrees had quicker feet than him. He didn't look so swift then, but obviously you've seen something that I haven't and know what to look for better than me mate.

This is a bit bizzarre tbh, I've had arguments pro and con for Toney on here over the years but I've never seen many if any argue that he had quick feet in an overall sense. We're going in circles, just agree to disagree and be done with it.