Toney's resume is vastly underrated.

Without the intention to start controversy, boxing historians has the very ugly issue to deal with in the case of James Toney, Sugar Shane Mosley, Roy Jones Jr. and others: steroid use and other illegal substances. For one, I myself lose a terribly lot respect to any fighter who fails a post-fight drug test. Meaning that they used illegal substances to improve their performance is something unaccaptable for me and should be unaccaptable for every boxing fan, expert, historian, etc.

We just can't tell how many times for example James Toney used illegal substances, we only know how many times he got caught. But building up his body from MW to LHW and winning a terrific decision in CW vs. the very good Jirov out of nowhere is at least suspicious. Easily defeating and stopping Holyfield and winning other fights in HW is suspicious as well and we know he used steroids for those fights. It's an issue since experts say that no elite athlete can gain more muscle weight above a natural limit if he's running 6-8 miles a day for 6 weeks and Mosley and Jones still could jump up 3 or more weight classes without losing much speed.

James Toney is without a doubt a HOF fighter mainly for his wins in his prime, in his lower weight classes. He was a very special fighter with his own style, very talented, great defense and variety of punches and defeated very good names. Was p4p#2 when he met Jones and it is Jones' most valuable win to date. So if you think the steroid issue is only an issue in the second part of his career, north of LHW, Toney should have a very good place among the HOFs... But whether the historians will believe that the steroid use affects only the post-2000 years of Toney, is a question I can't answer... and I'm pretty sure it will give headaches for them as well... Sorry, but I have to write this down in every SSM and RJJ HOF threads because it's an issue we have to deal with.

 

Agreed. Sports in general have become a very muddied landscape. It become almost impossible to compare different era's because of the effect steroids have taken on sports.

 

totally agree but steroid users or not I do respect this guys a lot

 

glad someone wrote this about toney, i have him in my 50 below list of ATGs, many people have overlooked toney with RJJ's win at heavyweight. History has RJJ as the only fighter starting at middleweight who got a title at heavyweight. But people tend to forget about toney, he didn't get a title but did more at HW than RJJ.

 

James Toney is probably my most inspiring fighter, as far as mimicking defensive skills and whatnot goes.
Tyson for his relentlessness and powerful combos, but Toney is where it's at with the art of not getting hit much.

 

Toney is just a fantastic old school fighter with a bad ass attitude, bad ass fighting style and a bad ass indestructable chin. ****ing middle weight going up to take trashing bombs straight to the chin by a heavyweight. The guy is like my favorite fighter:happy

 

Amsterdam make *The official James Toney is a mother ****ing bad ass thread*


Somebody!!!

 

I think it's sad that so much focus is given on Toneys steroid use. Now Toney used nandrolone in his fights with Ruiz and Batchelder, period. It wasn't right, and he got justly penalized for it. That's it. Case closed. It's not fair to suggest that he used them roids in any other fight. Some people use this to cast a shadow on his whole career, just as they bring up the Tiberi fight time and time again. Toney never looked roided up, on the contrary, except for the Holyfield fight he always looked flabby and out of shape at HW. His use of nandrolone before the Ruiz fight was intended to help healing some injuries, not to enhance his abilities. Some people think that Toney won that fight because he used nandrolone, they put way too much focus on that. While I agree that it was right declaring the fight a no contest and stripping the WBA from him, its clear for everybody to see that it was Toneys skills that enabled him to beat up Ruiz, and not the roids.

Btw, Toney never did much running, he mainly did countless rds of sparring for endurance.

And Toney already weighed 200lbs even before he began boxing, when he was playing football, he slimmed down considerably at a young age to fight at MW, and it was only natural to become heavier again with time. Toney is a natural LHW, it's not that hard to move up to CW and HW then. He didn't win against Jirov out of nowhere but he fought about 10 fights at CW before that, and he didn't need no roids to bulk up to HW, only lots of food...

 

Right on point, thanx for posting this.

Toneys career is severely underrated, he fought anybody anywhere anytime, at any division. Anybody criticizing Toney, just check his record and shut up. What other modern fighter has such a resume?
I think people underrate Toney because they focus too much on his off-nights, when he had close wins against fighters that weren't even half his level. It's clear that Toney is ten levels above someone like Drake Thadzi or McGroom or Batchelder, but he just didn't give a ****... and today the younger fans hear about the Batchelder fight, then they look up on boxrec and they say 'oh, Toney lost to Drake Thadzi, he can't be that good...'. Now if someone said 'Brazil lost a soccer-match against Norway in 98, so they weren't a great team after all' nobody would give a **** about that, but it's different with boxing... just like some people pretend that RJJ was a fraud cause he got knocked out by Tarver... Well you know, people tend to only see the bad and to overlook the good, I think that's also the case here...

And just think if Toney was around at MW or SMW today. He'd clean out the divisions (sorry Joe and Kelly, no offense, you're still good fighters...). He was the champ at MW, SMW and CW, even if he only held the IBF belts, he beat the men that were considered to be the champs and he was the best man in these divisions. He would have been the champ at LHW if it weren't for the Griffin robberies. He was competitive and held his own among the top HWs. Most of his losses were robberies, and he only got dominated by one man only, a prime RJJ in a fight where he was severely weight-drained.

 

Does he have an awesome resume??? YES. But that is not the whole story. it should not be forgotten that Toney got some gift decisions against some marginal fighters such as Tiberi, McGroom, and Batchelder. And probably should have lost the decision to Reggie Johnson, McCallum I, Sosa, and Rahman...I will grant that he was robbed in the first Peter fight. However, Toney was definitely the beneficiary of more gifts than he was robberies.

Jame Toney an awesome fighter but overrated by some!

 

Actually i believe he is vastly overrated on here. Never cleaned out a division never unified in a division. Plus, he has been suspended for steroids not once but twice now. There is no excuse for that.

 

TONEY IS NOT A THROWBACK! He's a gifter technition, but he is not old school.

The great fighters of yesteryear always came to fight in tip top shape. Toney has some old school moves, but he is NOT old School. The old school was about training hard, dedication, not about slacking off, and cheating with steroids.
Bernard Hopikins is Old School. He stays in shape, he has the old school skills.

Toney's resume is hurt by his NUMEROUS losses to medicore fighters. Fighters that he could have beaten if he cared enough to put in the work.

His resume at heavyweight is not very good. His only credible wins are against Old man Holyfield (this is Toneys best accomlpishment at heavyweight), some guy named Rydell Booker and perrenial loser Guinn. He lost to Peter twice, lost to Ruiz due to his cheating, lost to Rahman but got a gift draw, got caught cheating again against a nobody. The only thig you can say about Toney at heavyweght is that he has one hard head, his punch resistance is certainly tiop notch.

 

I love James Toney but I have to say Bernard's win over oscar should not be overlooked. He won by out boxing oscar, he didn't really use the advantages that come with being the bigger person.

 

Toney was the man. That was until he got to Heavyweight.