James Toney as a heavyweight?

I was in super brief talks to fight him, when the PED test took his title and his reputation away.

He was really good at heavyweight. Very skilled, and his style was actually enhanced by his size; Heavyweights punching down, trying to maximize power on a small opponent, makes for some juicy counterpunching for a fighter like that. That was the mistake Peter made in the first fight. In the rematch, he just stuck behind his jab and he won damn near every round.

He outfought Ruiz. He was roided up like crazy(Just look at him. Huge but not really fat), and that enabled him to stand his ground with the Quiet Man. With Ruiz unable to generate any pressure or force Toney to back up, he was soundly schooled.

Prior to that, Toney racked up a decent little heavyweight win streak. Dominick Guinn is a really good win, and Toney beat him even better than Liakhovich did(I had both those fights near shutouts, but Toney got hit less than Serge). Rydell Booker was a good heavyweight prospect that most of us had some respect for, and Toney shut him down, shut him out, and battered him. Wasted Holyfield, who was slow, old and injured, but still big, still well conditioned, and still dangerous.

After Ruiz, he fell off huge though. Rahman beat his ass; That was one of the worst robberies of that year. Toney was slovenly, he was backed up and roughed up and outjabbed all night. Sam Peter fought the wrong fight, and Toney's skills shined, but that bad decision came back to haunt James; It forced a rematch, in which Samuel Peter, of all people, took Toney to school. His heavyweight reputation was shot, and all he's really done is beat bad fighters and get destroyed by good fighters since.

 

I think those Peter fights took a lot out of Toney. Peter is a tank of a man and clubbed Toney pretty badly in both fights. I'd recommend re-watching the first fight without sound - the incredibly biased Showtime commentators disgust me. Peter lands a huge right hand flush that has Toney hurt and holding on to the rope? "Look how he rolled with that punch". Toney lands a light, flicking jab? "HUGE LEFT BY TONEY THAT STUNNED PETER!!".

 

Yeah. I thought Toney won a squeaker, but he had some really, really bad rounds. The point deduction should have decided the fight, though. No way Peter won wide.

 

I thought the Holyfield-Toney fight was a joke fight when it was announced. I figured Holyfield was looking for an easy win over a name opponent and would soundly thrash Toney. Boy, was I surprised at the result. Toney broke Holyfield down to the body. That was a good win.

 

Imagine that was Sonny Liston's left jab coming at Toney.

 

'If I do take steroids I'm not a very good advertisement for them, am I?' Toney

He certainly benefited from them, but the sad thing is he could have easily been bigger and better with the dedication he never had. And he could have easily passed the test if he actually had a clue what he was doing with them.

Magna unless things have slipped under your radar, I think you know PEDs are rife in boxing like most sports. But they will never make a bouncer into a boxing champion

 

He had the Rahman rematch too, which he was well on his way to winning before Rahman quit.

 

A good HW fighter not a great one though.. Much like Roy Jones, though Jones only had one fight, I view Toney and Jones as the same caliber of HW.

 

better as a heavyweight than a cruiser because conditioning for weight drained Toney because he could not maintain a conditioned weight. When he fought Holyfield he was fit and he was one of the 1st guys to go strongly to the mid section of Evander (thus the KO), he had Rahman out on his feet and at 38 still fought even with Sam Peter for the most part. If he was fighting 15 rounds he would have gotten starched back in the day vs Marciano,Frazier,Charles or Walcott or Ali but could handle the skill-less big guys of the 90/2000's pretty handily

 

The quoting system in this thread is distorted to the point where I have no idea who I was responding to. My point was that Valdez wasn't very good and most of his accomplishments were based on losing efforts. I think that was directed at Janitor.