Sources close to Team James ‘lights out’ Toney have revealed that the former MW, SMW, CW and HW champion is close to signing a 15 million $ deal with Matchroom Sports in a final quest to regain a HW title. Toney, sporting an impressive 77-10-3 record, was last seen inside the ring in 2017, when he stopped top20 contender Mike Sheppard. The deal should include a 4 fight run – 2 tune up fights in the second half of 2019 to see where the aging legend ‘is at’ and to get him back in championship shape, then a fight against a ranked contender in early 2020, and finally a title shot in late 2020, presumably against Anthony Joshua, who is seen by promoter Eddie Hearn as the weakest link among the current beltholders at HW. Legendary trainer Buddy McGirt, who already trained Toney for the Denis Lebedev fight back in 2011, is also on board for this comeback. Toney, who turned 50 last year, is said to be guaranteed a 2 million $ purse for each of the first 2 fights, 4 million $ for the 3rd fight and 7 million for the title-shot, and all fights are to be streamed on the DAZN platform. Also according to Eddie Hearn, there would be no testing required from Toney for any of the 4 planned fights, something Anthony Joshua has already welcomed under the condition that there would be no testing required for himself too, should he then defend his titles against Toney in 2020. Should Toney achieve his quest and win the IBF, WBA and WBO belts from Joshua by the end of 2020, he would be the oldest man to hold a portion of the HW championship up to now, surpassing the equally legendary former HW champion George Foreman by 4 years.
Toney will get his ass kicked even in those warm-up fights and then he will retire again. Why does he want to continue and get hurt?
If this was a prime Toney, he would be getting offers like this from DAZN. He would have been a real nemesis for Golovkin, Clenelo and the Charlos etc.
