James Toney as a heavyweight?

Joe Louis in no way is a sure bet to knockout Toney. We're talking about James Toney here.

 

Toney as a HW is a waist of time to even mention...In his era he would have had to deal with the likes of Holy, Lewis, Wlad, A possible fight with Roy at HW and maybe even Tyson. Toney wouldnt have survived against any of the elite.

 

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It's still impressive that a natural middleweight was able to hang in there twice with a big, strong, hard-punching heavyweight like Peter. And in the first fight, Toney performed beautifully.

 

he beat peter the first time

 

First of all Toney never was a real HW, even in the Holyfield fight he looked ok but still flabby around the waist. He's a natural MW/SMW who at the very highest should have fought at CW. He entered the HW scene when he already was far past his best (just look how he moved at MW and SMW and then how he did after 1996 - no footwork left) and he was so fat that he often outweighed his opponents, who were natural HWs.

People are always writing off his win over old man Holyfield. Toney was coming of a great win over Jirov but I remember Holyfield was being regarded as a huge favourite over Toney back then, and many people were laughing about the HW Toney. They didn't laugh after he stopped Holyfield though, something one other man only ever achieved, before and after that fight. And it wasn't the win in itself that was so impressive, it was the way Toney did it - he made it look easy. Much better than Chris Byrd or Larry Donald did. I think the Toney that night would have beaten any active HW back then, bar the Klitschkos.

OK, his HW campaign wasn't that successfull after that, and that's because he's been his own worst enemy and has made all the wrong decisions... but still, here's a natural MW/SMW who stepped into the ring with big punching top HWs and held his own, never got stopped or been close to being stopped, while going toe - to -toe with them. It's not only a sign that Toney was one of the defensively most skilled boxers of this era, but also one of the toughest, maybe even the toughest.

 

Toney doesnt get the credit he deserves period, one of the greatest of this era. P4p i rank him ahead of hopkins easily

 

Great fight, he was well past his best but did enough to win. The shots he took in that fight finished him imo:-(

He has the best chin of all time. Think of another former middleweight that could stay in the pocket and take shots from a heavyweight.

 

Exactly. One ancient version of an all time great,and the rest are a pretty moderate bunch.

 

I actually think he was a pretty good HW. Had he moved up a couple of years sooner, trained a little harder, and fought more frequently... he may have been considered a great HW.

At MW I felt he was overrated. He has some good wins but he struggled with every top MW he faced.

Drew with Sanderline Williams and later clearly outboxed him. Williams was not a top MW.

He Beat Merqui Sosa by Split-Decision. Sosa was down in the 3rd and lost a point for low blows in the 10th.

He was clearly getting outboxed by Michael Nunn prior to stopping him in the 11th.

He was dropped and cut by Reggie Johnson and won a questionable Split-Decision.

Drew with Mike McCallum and beat him by Majority-Decision. McCallum outlanded Toney by more than 100 punches in the rematch.

He beat Dave Tiberi by Split-Decision in a very controversial decision.

Going 3-0-1 (1) vs. Nunn, Johnson, and McCallum is great but it was far from easy and a strong case can be made that he should have went 1-3 (1) vs. these guys. A case can be made he lost to Sosa and once to Williams as well. No doubt he lost to Tiberi. It wouldn't look so good had he gone just 2-6 (1) vs. these guys, would it? That's why I never got the "Lights Out" nickname... who's lights? Other than Nunn and Charles Williams (at SMW), he wasn't knocking too many top MWs out.

At SMW I'm really not all that impressed with his wins over Barkley or even Charles Williams.

Barkley had trouble making 175 at this point, let alone 168. He was washed up. His next fight was at HW.

Williams fought at LHW for over 14 years. He had already been outboxed by Maske. He cut down to face Toney, lost, went back to LHW and didn't do much... he was well past prime.

Toney was supposed to be a force at LHW but losses to Griffin x2 and Thadzi derailed that.

Toney's best weights were CW and HW to be honest.

:bbb