James 'Lights Out' Toney

You failed to mention that he also cheated twice.Tonys career is one of "what ifs"

 

Good read. Thanks for posting.

 

Toney is a poor mans Joe Calzaghe only Joe talked the talk. Fed up with Americans loving their own and talking **** and putting down Hatton Calzaghe Lennox. This one takes the biscuit Toney never fought the G man never fought Hopkins, Eubank, Benn, Collins and you really think he was beatin Nunn. What if. He could have beat all of them including Roy. But he didnt so lets not justify this fat *******s legacy by saying he beat Jirior (who) and a version of Holyfield

 

Toney owns that Philadelphia ass at any weight.

 

If not for different judges he could just as easily have at least 10 career losses.

 

Toney threw the Gauntlet. Lets see if Oscar's shoeshine boy accepts.

 

One of my favorite fighters. I think the new generation should take a close look at his skill set, it's not like you need super reflexes to pull them off. Toney still does it, and he's old and fat now.

 

Good post. You hit on an important point. Toney has ATG skills but he won't be put on the ATG lists because his career resume isn't epic.

I hate all the posts on here that criticize his heavyweight campaign, most of these types of people have to be youngsters that don't remember Toney at 160 or 168. He was weight drained at those weights but did amazing things in the Nunn, Barkley, McCallum, Littles, etc. fights.

Skill on par with anyone, ever. We won't see someone like him again for a long while, especially a guy who fought with the regularity of fighters from the 40's and 50's.

How many champions today fight 5, 6, or 7 times a year, taking on anybody you put in front of them, often with just a few weeks between fights?? Answer: None. Toney did that and deserves credit for it.

 

and yet again a Toney thread completely skips his habit(oow yeah I forgot, just two cases don't prove anything), sorry, his tendancy to be caught with juice (performance enhancing drugs). But that must be a cultural difference, in the US appearantly 1 in 6 male teens uses performance enhancing drugs of some sort according to National Geographic. But just like baseball, basketball and in the NFL nobody cares as long as athletes perform...

Despite everything he performed in his past, for which he rightfully deserves credit, he did willingly take dope of some sort, which should mean you've pushed it too far and should hang up the gloves yet his fans seem to ignore or simply don't care....

Give the man credit for his skill, his tactics and ringsmarts. But please at least accept the fact that he took juice and in the eyes of the educated world that means simply an unfair competitive advantage and therefore pure unsportsmanship.... Boxing isn't a martial art, it is a sport, a dual in it's purest form. What happened to "the gentelman's game"?

I love boxing, but can't stand the amount of promoters corruption, steroids and vague politics in boxing. But worst of all are the fans who excuse their fighters for everything..

 

A poor man's Joe Calzaghe?! Dire comment. For a start, they were completely different fighters, fought the majority of their careers in different weight divisions, and if you actually know anything about this sport you will be aware that Toney's resume is considerably stronger. Toney is not a poor man's anything and Calzaghe is not a poor man's anything, they are two different fighters of a roughly similar standing, though I personally believe Toney is the greater fighter. Better resume, titles in more weight divisions, and the '91-'94 mw/smw Toney was a better fighter h2h IMO. You may disagree, fine, but the "poor man" comment is just moronic.

You don't really know much about Toney's career anyway, so you'd be best advised to minimize your comments about him.

- Hopkins? B-Hop never won a mw belt till 1995, by which time Toney was at lhw and ended the year at cruiser.

- Eubank? How many times did he fight in the USA after 1986? There was Nunn, Toney, Jones, Hopkins, McClennan and more, and Eubank never went to the USA nor made serious concrete offers to lure any of them over the water, so that one can't be laid at Toney's door. Eubank was too busy fighting the best fighters his own country and Europe had to offer - Benn, Watson, Rocchigiani, Collins. He showed no interest in the best US fighters and they showed no interest in him, there's very little to criticize on either side.

- Benn? He fought a few times in the US after being stopped by Watson, but was lured back to face Eubank and stopped again. After that he trod the same path as Eubank, for 5 years he failed to go over to the States to fight Nunn, Toney, Jones or Hopkins, and then the McClennan fight was made after Toney's stock was plummeting with the Jones and Griffin fights. Again, no blame on either side, but Toney's comp was better than Benn's in this time period it must be noted.

- Collins? Toney beat Reggie Johnson who beat Collins. Toney beat McCallum who beat Collins. And after Collins lost to Kalambay in '92, he went home to Ireland/Uk and never left again. That was never a fight that Toney never needed.

You list who he didn't fight and who didn't fight him, but look at who he did fight in only THREE YEARS:

- Mike McCallum twice (not peak but a very very good version of the Bodysnatcher who was an ATG lmw and an excellent mw h2h)

- Michael Nunn (36-0 at the time, a case of unfulfilled potential, excellent mw in his earlier days)

- Tim Littles (24-0 at the time, had already beaten Frankie Liles & Antoine Byrd)

- Reggie Johnson (who beat Steve Collins for the WBA mw title 2 fights later)

- Iran Barkley (coming off a second win over Tommy Hearns)

- Prince Charles Williams (long-reigning IBF light-heavyweight champion)

- some other good solid contenders at the time like Doug DeWitt and Merqui Sosa


It was this run of form in only three years that led to Lights Out being p4p#2 behind only Pernell Whitaker in 1994.

Then he ran into a peak version of one of the greatest fighters ever h2h, the 168 version of Roy Jones, and his career went into a bit of a slump, but when you take what he had already achieved and add to that his renaissance as a big fat dynamo in the 2000s, you have quite a career.

For a 5'10" former middleweight world champ to go on a run from his mid-30s to his 40th year beating Jason Robinson and Vassily Jirov up at cruiser, becoming only the second man to stop Evander Holyfield and also beating Booker and Guinn, drawing with Rahman, and going toe-to-toe with powerpunching natural hw Sam Peter and winning IMO in their 1st fight - for all the fat comments etc, his ability and his guts are beyond reproach. When I recall the acclaim lavished on RJJ for outboxing John Ruiz, and think of the scorn directed at Toney for outfighting Sam Peter in their 1st fight, it's just ludicrous.

James Toney never fulfilled his potential, that much is true, but he was still a superb mw/smw in his day, he still has had a remarkable career and built up a strong resume by contemporary standards, and is still a big fat genius to this day. :good

And I'd like to end with...

Just about sums your comment up nicely. Vassily Jirov was one of the best cruiserweights of the last decade. He participated in one of the best fights of the last decade and one of the best cruiserweight fights since the 1980s, and it was also one of the best wins by any fighter so far this century. Back to the drawing board for you, you Union Joke. :hi: