Toney's resume is vastly underrated.

:good:good:good:good

 

Toney could've been the best of his generation. Mad skills, great boxing brain, very good power in both hands.

One of my favorite of all time. Would've loved to see Hopkins vs. Toney.

 

Yeah... Toney's a throwback, but look who's the healthiest between him and Hopkins. Hopkins managed his career more wisely. He's super healthy, made great money... Toney has slipped badly and his slurring his speach like crazy.

 

Toney was his best at 160, and even then he was whipped, and given a boxing lesson by RJ, WAS beat by Dave Tiberi, then lost twice to Montell Griffin, and was outpointed by some guy named Drake Thadizi??
No way in hell is he under-rated:-( Now he's a Steriod cheat, and getting popped twice for roids will hurt his legacy..
Hopkins, and Roy Jones guy's from his era had better career's than Toney did..

 

This is true. Toney's has an incredible chin but all that hardcore sparing and taking punches with his hands down definitely are taking its course. Again I just think its amazing that he accomplished so much with such a careless attitude towards his career. He could have had one of the most flawless records in boxing.

 

Yep. I think Toney could've been the greatest fighter ever had he been as dedicated and disciplined as he was talented.

Most natural fighter ever I would say.

 

If you look up the word Subtle in the dictionary they should have James Toney's boxing style as one of the entries.

 

Absolutely good point about Toney being busted for roids. When evaluating the greatness of a fighter you must look at the complete body of his career good and bad.

 

:good

 

Toney fought anyone anywhere anytime and that is what he has done his entire career!!! From 160lbs to heavyweight he has taken on everyone without fear and has an ATG chin with amazing defensive ability and has beaten great fighters. What is overrated about that? Absolutely nothing! If everyone followed Toney as far as fearlessness and risk taking the sport of boxing would be 5x the sport it is today!

 

It's an interesting thought experiment to imagine what any other fighter would have done when competing against the opponents Toney has fought. In boxing history the only ones I could imagine are Jones and maybe... Bob Fitzissimons?(obviously it's impossible to really speculate on someone that far back.)

Am I missing anyone else? I think that is truly remarkable.

In regards to Jones, this thread got me thinking about how he would have done if he had been matched like Toney. Lets say we transport Jones from the Hopkins fight into Toney of the Nunn fight (Both their first title bouts.) and continued on from there.

I seriously doubt Jones goes through the first half of Toney's career, lets say until after the Griffith fights, without a loss. I think he wins more of those fights cleanly, but I could see him losing to Nunn, or Mccallum, or Griffin (indeed, he did lose to him once) or drawing with Jones (kidding.)

Now he'd probably be the favorite in all of those, but especially when he was still immature it is not hard to imagine him losing one of those. He certainly would have won the Thazdi, Tiberi type fights more cleanly, but i think he would have been more challenged than his actual resume.

The more interesting part comes from the second half of Toney's career, with bouts against; Jirov, Holyfield, Ruiz, Rahman, and Peter twice. I know Jones beat Ruiz as cleanly as Toney, but it's hard for me to imagine Jones doing as well as even the mixed results Toney achieved.

This is not to say that Toney was better, clearly the discipline Jones had shouldn't be held against him considering Toney only really went to heavy because of flaws in his training, it is just to point out that Toney is very close to unique in boxing history, and his record unlikely to be replicated any time in the near future.

I'd also like to point out, that while many are dismissive of Toney for his many close decisions, this was in many ways a byproduct of his style of fighting. When scoring Jones fights, he was so cautious and flashy, there were rarely any rounds up for debate and one didn't even have to watch closely.

Toney's style, which I find immensely appealing, is based on subtelty and contact, infighting which many judges do not like or appreciate, and others appreciate perhaps too much. That is why there were often divergent scores for his bouts.

For instance, I thought Toney won the two Griffin fights, CLEANLY, with Griffin landing no more than a dozen noteworthy shots in 24 rounds. But the judges, and I suppose I can see their point of view, did not agree. I thought Jones had far more trouble with Griffin in the first fight than Toney did, but so it goes.

In addition Toney's fight with Jirov, though entertaining, was not at all close in my opinion, and I know many people had it as such.

On the other hand I thought he was very lucky to get a draw with Mccallum, and that fight is probably the single most difficult fight to score I've ever watched.

I'm rambling at this point, but Toney is my single favorite fighter to watch, and I do think people overlook that while he had his valleys, he is entirely unique in boxing history.

 

Toney was at his best at 168, where he lost to Roy.

Toney's gift over Tiberi was at 160. The Griffin fights were at 175, which Toney should have won.

Toney and McCallum split their 2 fights @ 160 lbs on my scorecard. First fight for Toney, the rematch for Mike.

 

Even the Jirov win is a better win than what most fighters have on their resumes. How many fighters can say they moved up to a weight class, and defeated an undefeated upper-tier fighter who was dominating his division at the time?

 

good ****ing post :good

 

JT came into the fight game around the time when fighting top guys left and right was expected of you. Roy Jones instituted the businessman approach that we see so many guys abusing today.

That fight between JT and Roy Jones was the turning the corner for boxing. And that was for the worse, not the better.