James Toney as a heavyweight?

Maybe not, but you can certainly say Ruiz if there were no belts and only a championship would be number 1 contender in the division at least once. When he beat Holyfield he sort of was or when he beat Rahman, Golota and Oquendo on the trott after Byrd drew with Golota and got a gift against Oquendo

 

You will corect me if I am wrong, but I don't think Ruiz was ever ranked higher than #2. Peter was breifly ranked #2 while the Ring Belt was vacant which effectivley made him the #1 challenger, but that was based on his win over Toney which you are presumably disputing.

 

Toney deserved the first Peter fight yes, so presumably he would have been elevated to number 1 contender

I'm not really going off the Ring rankings, more recollection, The Ring really was controversial in awarding Vitali it's belt.

Ruiz was Lewis's WBA mando and Lewis took Don Kings money to not defend against Ruiz. Ruiz had probably done more than Michael Grant after he beat Holyfield, I'm not sure who'd rank above him.

In 05 Ruiz should have been number 1 when Toney fought him, whether he was I'm not sure. Vitali was injured/retired, Wlad was coming off the Brewster loss, Byrd was getting gift decisions.

 

Of course if you are going to aply judicial review to the first Toney Peter fight, then you open up a whole can of worms with John Ruiz. Who dosn't disagree withg some of the key decision wins of his career.

 

Archie Moore denied us some very interesting title fights for Rocky Marciano, which would have had a considerable bearing on the debate about how he would have dealt with bigger heavyweights from subsequent eras.

1953 Rocky Marciano, Champion

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2. Ezzard Charles
3. Dan Bucceroni
4. Roland LaStarza
5. Earl Walls
6. Don Cockell
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8. Tommy Harrison
9. Bob Satterfield
10. Coley Wallace

1954 Rocky Marciano, Champion

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2. Don Cockell
3. Ezzard Charles
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5. Earl Walls
6. Heinz Neuhaus
7. Rex Layne
8. Tommy (Hurricane) Jackson
9. Charley Norkus
10. Jimmy Slade

1955 Rocky Marciano, Champion

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3. Tommy (Hurricane) Jackson
4. John Holman
5. Willie Pastrano
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7. Johnny Summerlin
8. Bob Satterfield
9. Young Jack Johnson
10. Ezzard Charles

1956 Floyd Patterson, Champion

1. Tommy (Hurricane) Jackson
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3. Harold Carter
4. Willie Pastrano
5. Eddie Machen
6. Bob Satterfield
7. Ingemar Johansson
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9. Zora Folley
10. Wayne Bethea

 

No, Toney was not a great HW, far from it. Though he is a sure shot Hall of famer, just as Roy.

But Roys shutout win over Ruiz is only marginally better than Toneys stoppage win over Holyfield , if it is at all.

And Roy, just like Toney, was no real HW. But I can't see Roy facing Toneys competition (the best the division had to offer except for the Klitschkos) without getting knocked out cold along the way. Roy would not have survived long at HW, that's the reason why he moved back down to LHW (where he got knocked out nevertheless...). Roy should just have retired after that Ruiz win, or he should have fought Lewis in a mega-fight and get knocked out in that fight but at the same time improve his legacy for having the balls to face Lennox Lewis, and then retire. Better than dragging on the way he does these days... He's a brain damage victim waiting to happen, it's tragic.

Toney won some and lost some, but at least he never got knocked out or embarrassed. He held his own with these much bigger and stronger men. Can you imagine Roy going against big punching Rahman or Peter?

 

That GIF is out of context. Toney was off-balance and not even hurt by that punch. You can see that Peters first jabs put Toney off balance. Peter still won that fight decisevely.

But in their first fight, Toney buzzed Peter a couple times. You can argue that Toney hurt Peter more than Peter hurt Toney.

 

Vitali cockblocked the Jones-Lewis fight

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/boxing/news/2003/06/07/jones_holyfield_ap/
Jones was ready to fight Lewis, but Lewis would first had to rematch Vitali so he retired instead.

As far as I know the contract to fight Corrie Sanders had been signed but Jones quit.
Woops

Following the Klitschko fight, Sanders was supposed to have a bout against Lamon Brewster, the WBO number one heavyweight contender. Sanders refused; he wanted a big money fight instead. Sanders was then offered a shot at Roy Jones Jr. for a WBA-WBO heavyweight unification, but the WBO threatened to strip Sanders if he did this, because Jones was not among the top 10 in the WBO's ratings

 

I keep coming across videos of Toney saying he wishes hed fought Tyson as hed beat him easy.

Shame, i need subtitles for Toneys videos

 

Sanders is just about the worst mathup for Jones at heavy. Also, Sanders-Brewster would've been a dream fight. Too bad we didn't see those.

 

Post fight conference of the Jones-Sanders fight

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Roy Jones might get his glass shattered.

Though I don't really know how much better his hw chin than his post Ruiz chin.
Ruiz landed some shots and Roy didn't get floored, so it wasn't that bad.

It all depends, Roy had more experience than Wlad with southpaws and would have probably taken Sanders much more serious after the Wlad fight.
Sanders had a strange chin, sometimes he could take a lot of punishments, other times he got KO'd in one round by the worst hw around.