The Best of the Rest: 175lbs Tier II Tournie - Round 1 -15: James Toney KO8 Gus Lesnevich

What i've done is i've lifted top tiers out of my top fifty at the poundage, fiddled it a little bit to minimise guys with no footage and used the remaining 32 names plus some subs to develop a seeded tournament to uncover "the best of the rest" at the poundage, with you, the denizens of the world's greatest boxing history forum, casting the deciding vote.

Pick your man! Write however many details you like or don't in a post below. But maybe try to post, to keep things moving a little bit. You have three days.

And let's be nice. No reason for disagreeing over total fantasies after all!

15 rounds, 1950s rules and ref. Ten points must. Weigh in is 18 hours before the fight.

I'll only vote if it's tied, then I'll decide the result.

Round of Thirty-Two Fight 15: James "Lights Out" Toney vs Gus "Gustav" Lesnevich

JAMES TONEY (77-10-3)
The immortal James Toney perhaps didn't have his very best years at LHW, but he scored some excellent wins there as well as dropping his most damaging losses. Angles and jangles meant Toney was always dangerous against whatever quality of opponent and often the more consistent they were the more dangerous Toney could be. Contrarily he could also be outworked.

Toney spent just 1995 and 1996 at the limit and depending upon how you feel about over-the-weight matches lost either two or three fights and won some beauties, my favourite the seventh round stoppage of Tony Hembrick. Hembrick's ring entrance was also very cool.

GUS LESNEVICH (60-14-5)

Depending upon your point of view, Gus Lesnevich either committed perhaps the most shameful duck in the history of the light-heavyweight title or was a fighter whose legacy was compromised by the outbreak of World War Two. After being thrashed by Jimmy Bivins in a non-title match in 1942, manager Lew Diamond told press that there would be no chance of a rematch between Bivins and Lesnevich. Lesnevich disappeared into the war-time coastguard – his title frozen for the duration, he remained true to his manager’s word. What this adds up to is a title reign of around seven years – but one which encompassed a total of only five successful defences against only three different fighters.

Nevertheless there is much to admire about Lesnevich, not least an outstanding persistence and hearty directness that earned him status as a fan favourite. Thrashed by Billy Conn in his first title shot in November of 1939, Lesnevich was so popular that he was handed a second title shot in the summer of the following year. Beaten again, he nevertheless was able to win more than the four rounds generally reported in the first fight, and it can have been of little surprise when Lesnevich received a third title shot a year later, this time beating out Anton Christoforidis. After making two successful defences against the unranked Tami Mauriello (the first of them desperately close) and the beating at the hands of Jimmy Bivins, the service got Lesnevich and when he re-emerged in 1946 it was thought that he, like peers Billy Conn and Joe Louis, would have left his best behind him. This seemed confirmed when he was smashed out by Bruce Woodcock up at heavyweight, the only time in his career that Lesnevich heard the ten. But Lesnevich came again, and in fact was the Ring fighter of the year in 1947. His brutal stoppage of British rival Freddie Mills, as savage a knockout as can be seen on film, was likely the highlight of this second career; but it was Mills who would take the title from him in 1948 over fifteen after a torrid first round that left Lesnevich cut and hurt.

Other fine wins over contenders like Alabama Kid, Ambrose Palmer and Billy Fox help nurse a ranking earned in the main with elbow grease and hard work.

 

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Only hours remain! Can long-reigning champion Lesnevich be saved?

 

Gus Lesnevich was stopped in eight rounds by a James Toney who appeared not to get out of third gear, and indeed who appeared to lose almost every round, bar the third where a feinted jab right hand off a tight circle dropped Lesnevich for a nine count, and the eighth, where Toney turned that same trick on two more occasions. Lesnevich had locked up the early rounds with a very fast start but he was being cuffed occasionally by that punch as early as the second and refused to heed the warnings.