Toney started talking about moving to heavy in about 1993, in an interview in KO magazine. In the interview he talked about how slow Riddick Bowe was and said that he would be heavyweight champion by 2004, if my memory is correct, though he may have said 2001.
Once one gets over the fact that Toney had, at one time, competed at Middleweight (roughly ten years earlier), his run at Heavyweight isn't all that impressive.
Not under rated at all, but perhaps a lost opportunity! He could have beaten some key fighters, had he only trained seriously!
Bowe, at his peak (however brief that might have been) would have been too much for the Heavyweight version of Toney and there’s no performance Toney gave in the division to suggest otherwise.
Correct. Big fan of Tony but Bowe is a bad matchup. Big, iron chin, good jab and power, surprisingly good on the inside despite long arms. Had stamina to throw with volume or trade for several rounds. A short counter puncher who lacks ko power would need to outland Bowe 2:1 and avoid getting brutalized just to even the odds for a slim chance of a decision win. I just don't see it happening. Toney had speed and head movement but bowe wouldnt have a hard time landing and could simply bully him.
I thought it was good. I thought fighting Peters was the wrong move. Some guys stylistically you just don't fight. It is good to fight everyone, but that fight was the wrong fight. Toney was moving up and Peters had one punch power. I think it sped up his decline.
What? Toney was far from a fraud. Just because he wasn't that successful at HW doesn't take away from his good wins at lower weights. There was nothing fraudulent about his defensive skills and counters
Would be interesting to know if you said that before the fight. To me this was a better version of Holyfield than for the Byrd fight
