Trend? He lost to Roy Jones after being weight drained. We're talking PRIME Toney, which would be the version that tore apart Iran Barkley 1 1/2 years before the Jones fight. Toney showed he could adapt and beat different styles at 160 and 168: Nunn, Johnson, McCallum, Barkley, Charles Williams, etc. You guys far underrated Toney.
You gotta be kidding me. Michael Nunn had some of the fastest hands of that era. Calzaghe is nowhere NEAR as fast as Nunn was. And he only slowed in that fight because started bombing him with counter rights and left crosses in the later rounds. Now, I like Calzaghe, but you cannot even start to compare him with the 1994 version of Roy Jones. We're not talking technique, we're talking winning fights, and Roy at that time was nearly unbeatable, especially by a Toney who was dead at the weight at that time. If you take the 168 version of Toney that fought Barkley, Calzaghe is going to look like he's swimming in quicksand trying to land on him.
I like both guys (in fact, I'd pick Toney over Hopkins at 160..but that's another argument for another day), I just think Calzaghe would win more often than not unless Toney catches him for the KO because of the reasons I pointed out. It'd be a hell of a fight, though.
People overrate the Nunn-Toney fight. They act like Toney was losing every round, he wasn't. He had won the last couple of rounds and coming on very strong.
Well, he beat Nunn by knocking him out late. Nunn was well ahead on all cards at the time of the stoppage
I'll take Toney by UD, although I'm far from an expert on prime Calzaghe. I can easily see James landing blistering counters inside of those sweeping arm punches Joe gets away with. You can do that to Lacy and Manfredo, not a prime Lights Out.
Toney was more inconsistent at 160 than at 168. He had one poor performance at 168, getting dominated by Roy Jones. At 160, he won a close fight over Reggie Johnson after being dropped and hurt in round 2, got a highly questionable call over DAVE TIBERI, and arguably lost the Mike McCallum rematch. And he never even fought the best guys @ 175. The best guy he fought there was probably Montell Griffin, whom Toney probably deserved the decision in BOTH fights, but Toney also lost @ 175 to Drake Thadazi of all people.
I like Toney and his 'oldschool' (dont we get sick of that phrase!) style but despite his much higher level of competition Joe has a horrible style for Toney to adjust too. Joe's bigger, stronger, quicker and I can see those wide left hands landing with regularity despite Toney's excellent defense. Joe UD 12 despite the fact I hate picking the less proved fighter (no excuse really at 35) in a matchup like this.
James toney by KO or UD...either way he'd be too much for Joe in terms of skills. But Joe would do well in spurts and make it an exciting fight until he had to pick himself off the canvas.