Just watched the 2 toney exciting fights. He dropped two to the Nigerian nightmare. It was around this time after these 2 fights that James started slurring his speech. Don't get me wrong I'm a jt fan (who couldn't be?) But it's just kinda sad he paid the price of losing his faculties to his arch nemesis Peter. In fact I was gonna watch Williams vs toney in Mexico exhibition just to support the cause you know?... But after seeing this video: This content is protected I am appalled at how much damage JT took. The chiro is a great guy, but he did some crazy ish dang near snapped toneys back! I was gonna say j Williams is another guy with minor brain damage, he gave too much to the sport. I'm kind of relieved they didn't go ahead with the exhibition, it's just sad to see Jeremy like that. " It was just some great left hook that smashed up Jeremy williams vs Sam Peter,". I would have loved to see Samuel Peter fight DAVID TUA, a real hw not a cruiserweight, with a chin and a hard punch, somebody his own size. Btw this is the reason my favorite heavy is James Toney. The intangibles, chin, undersized, great defence, ample offense, exciting fighter to watch.
In my opinion Toney was just at the point where he was gonna fall off anyway. Williams was always a very flawed fighter who was in hindsight overrated.He took as much if not more punishment vs Mo Harris(who was a kid who took the fight on a week’s notice a d was written off).That fight could have been stopped several times.
Strange how guys like James Toney and Willie Pep who are talked about for there defensive abilities but ended up really badly punch drunk as opposed to guys like George Foreman. Toney did say Peter was the hardest puncher he ever fought.
Slurring speech is due to hard sparring. Fighters with slurred speech like Bowe, Norris, Meldrick Taylor all went hard in sparring
Toney was notorious for his gym wars at Kronk and at Wild Card. I believe his years of hard sparring had more to do with his current condition than anything else. He had a rep for forgoing roadwork and simply banging away round after round in the gym against anyone who dared to fight him. Side note, I really hope James never fights again. I saw his second to last fight in St Louis and it was really hard to watch a once great fighter practically falling over evertime he threw a punch. I also had the privilege of seeing Toney fight live in the mid 90's in a tune up. He was a badass to say the least.
Toney was already quite old and well beyond the weight parameters where he should have been competing. I don’t make anything of Peter’s wins over Toney nor how James performed after them. He was on borrowed time
Peter put the hurt on James. And while it wasn't the main cause of his condition, it didn't help. James was winning battles in those fights. Sam was winning the war.
Foreman is usually a super bad example to compare any boxer to. He started boxing late (16-17 years old) and turned pro rather fast, adopting high pressure, high knockout percentage style combined with very underrated defense. Then he retired with only one ring war under his belt and came back with that enormous, sturdy neck of his and a crossguard to boot. Foreman didn't go through very few ring or sparring wars, he smashed most of his opponents and as Moorer said, was deceptively hard to land flush on because of his long guard. Willi Pep on the other hand survived 240 professional fights, a plane crash, and four encounters with Sandy Saddler. That ought to take a toll.
Most people thought he did which is why the WBC webt back on their word the winner would get a title fight next and ordered an immediate rematch.
It is the hard sparring. But also the hard illegal rabbit punches from Peter. Those can cause permanent brain damage.
It's the reverberating shots on the back of the head. They are extremely damaging compared to one on the schnozz, and Toney's style of defence actually plays into it, especially against Peter's continuous rabbit punching. Compare this to someone like Chavez who had a square and low style of head movement and parrying - seldom rabbit punched and still in good nick. Combine that with the extreme amount of sparring, weight cutting and eventual weight jumping and it ends badly.
