james toney...as a technical fighter is way OVER RATED

his straight right in the holyfield fight was as straight and short as anyone could have thrown. and i always thought toney's straight right, or cross was one of his best punches.

 

"Very, very good footwork" includes being balanced in all the moves you make and being able to turn and play the angles (that he did at times against fighters of the calibre of McCallum as well). So what that a pretty green Toney didn't catch up with Nunn until he finally did do it? He did catch up to him in the end and used his footwork to get the balance and leverage to put him away. That's what matters.

About Jones; who didn't he make look set in stone? Was Hopkin's footwork average now too?

But, yes, Toney often looked a bit lead footed, but that has much more to do with tactics, mentality and physical fitness and ability than quality of footwork. The moves he did do, he executed excellently.

 

Lets see:

In your view Nunn's footwork wasnt even good.

But Toney's footwork was great.

Yet Nunn was boxing circles around Toney.

So what does that say about Toney's footwork that a guy that in your view had poor footwork was able to do what Nunn was doing(clearly outboxing Toney by using speed and movement) before he got caught?

 

Toney is by no means a mover BUT he does use half steps, little shuffles, step overs to shift the angles in his favour, he did in his pomp step into his punches well. It's educated, conservative footwork, it's not a massive part of his game and he could be outmoved by faster feet. As for his ability to stalk, well he always seems to get in range, bar the Jones fight, against Nunn he does pretty well at making the fight being fought at his range

Having said that his greatest technical strengths are his shoulder roll head movement, countering, accuracy, timing, inside fighting

 

Horse ****........ James Toney prior to 2007 is one of the ATG technician's to ever grace the squared ring... He also owns a top-5 ATG jawbone, too...... I've been covering boxing for 35 years, and I'd place James Toney in my ATG top-12 list of pound-4-pound fighters that I have ever seen up close in action..... The melon-farmer is great...

MR.BILL

 

It only says that Nunn had a great athletic ability, but that his technical flaws still let him down in the end, since he was getting caught regularily the rounds leading up to the stoppage. If you can't tell the one from the other you should really stop posting here.

 

I believe what Bokaj is trying to say is that while Toney didn't have great movement and footspeed, he had great footwork in close and was good at using small steps and turns to set up countering opportunities. Correct me if I'm wrong (which I'm pretty sure I am).

And James Toney is one of the best counter punchers of all time. If that makes him a bad technician, I've yet to see a good one.

 

Toney was technically sound as far as stance, leverage for punching and pivoting at ring-centre goes.He had better footwork than someone like Marquez or Eubank on the frontfoot, but it was still quite awkward and sloppy...plus he was often lazy with moving his feet.He generally needs to be planted to punch well and rarely punched fluidly off forward half-steps and angle work.

He basically used handseed and workrate against a slowing down Johnson, to compensate for being outmaneauvered and took advantage of Nunn's slowing down of his own accord, but he was overextending and struggling to lead on the frontfoot throughout.

Against Jones-who was always a pretty basic technically sound fighter on the lateral movement and backfoot fronts- there got to be points where he was shuffling in an exaggerated crablike fashion to try and cut the ring off, then he would go to set and get turned with ease.It was embarassing.OF course Jones was a lot smarter, hit harder and didn't slow down like the other two, nor did he take any foolish risks standing in range depending on reflexes like Nunn did.

He did well against the mobility McCallum used, but that kind of movement was never McCallums natural game.the fact he even fought like that imo showed he was trying to compensate for being on the decline physically.HTe McCallum Toney fought was about as physically impressive as the weight drained Kalule, just he had a great jaw instead of an easily dentable one.

That said, he could look quite efficient stalking lesser fighters than the very good ones mentioned here.No worse than someone like Louis slowly stalking some of his bums of the month.

 

Agreed.

Toney was one of the best at inside fighting, slipping and countering with hooks and rolling off punches. To say he was overrated technically as a fighter is not accurate.

 

So how did he become a 3 weights titlists and was never stopped ?
no power , no conditioning , was drained more often than not .
He was hit , but then how many times was it flush ?
Were Sam Peter and Hassim Rahman that featherfisted they couldn't stop a fat , old shot , unconditioned and technically flawed supermiddleweight ?

 

He is overrated technically. He's a good technical fighter, and he fought great in the pocket, but people make it out like he's the greatest technical fighter ever. He does what he does VERY well, but he's nowhere near the best technical fighter ever.

 

^^agreed to a point with roy up there and the OP.

Toney, like most every fighter, was a master of his style. did he do everything well? nah. but what he did do he nearly perfected. his shoulder roll was flawless, his economy of motion allowed him to compete at an elite level way past his physical best and he may well be the best counterpuncher in the last 20 years. so he was pretty ****ing good at the style he adopted

 

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YOUR MOTHER IS OVERRATED! :twisted:

...Okay, this is the Classic section. I apologize. Allow me to rephrase: Sir, your mother is somewhat overrated. Good day to you and yours.

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PS: Wait until JT unifies the CW and HW division in his forties! :bbb GOOOOOOAAAAAT!

PPS: Okay, forget the mother thing. That's not me. I'm classy like JT. I take it back.