RJJ v. Toney II (at HW, ~2004/'05)

Toney would claim he was weight drained from having to shed pounds to make heavyweight.

 

Bernard WAS all mouth.

He had no intentions of moving up at that point.

He wouldn’t fight Roy at a 168 pound catch-weight, the year before, in 2002. He blew that fight which would have given him $6m.

Then the same year that he’d had talks with Toney, he’d withdrawn from a Calzaghe fight at 168, and thrown out challenges to all of the JMW champs to go up and fight him.

He then fought Oscar the following year, in 2004.

He didn’t fight Tarver until 2006, after he’d lost back to back fights against Taylor in 2005.

Yes, he fought Kovalev years later, and he deserves huge credit for that.

But he was never leaving the MW division back in the early 00’s.

He was never going up to CW.

Years later, he also spoke about fighting David Haye at CW. But nothing came of it.

It was just his ego flirting with the idea.

 

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jun-14-sp-boxcol14-story.html

 

You can't really blame him for fighting Oscar. That's like winning the lottery back in those days. He earned 10 million for that fight which was far more than any other fight in his career. Remember, he never made much money until beating Tito at 37 years old.

Again, we can disagree but I don't believe for a second Hopkins was scared of Toney or any other fighter. He literally fought everyone from 160 to 175 and had the money been there, he would have fought Toney at 190. I also remember Toney not wanting to have to make weight anymore. In fact, he only fought once more at cruiserweight and that was years later against David Lebedev at 200 pounds. He was way past his prime at that point.

 

I don’t blame him at all for fighting Oscar.

He must have thought that it was Christmas.

I’m simply saying that he had a huge ego, and he liked to flirt with the idea of moving up back then, yet he never did.

Read the link.

He’d have gotten a good amount. More than Toney. But it was never enough. He’d asked for $10m to rematch Roy, when apart from his purses against Tito and Daniels, the majority of his purses had been for just over $1m.

No, he wasn’t scared of Toney. Of course not. But like I said, these higher weight fights never came off back then. Never. And IMHO, he wouldn’t have left MW had he not have lost back to back fights against Taylor.

 

LMAOOOO

 

He was definitely having a hard time making 160. Once he lost to Taylor and the chance to break Louis's title defence record, he did the reasonable thing and moved to 175. At 6'2, he was probably more natural at 175. I do remember reading that he walked around at 180. For what it's worth, I thought he won the rematch with Taylor and arguably the first fight.

I 100% agree with you that Hopkins could be unreasonable with negotiations and was always looking for an angle. He is a very smart/shrewd guy. Not the most likable fighter but I always admired his resolve.