Did you expect a classic going into the fight? Who were you picking leading up to this fight? And did anybody predict Roy to look so dominant against Toney?
No--not expecting much as far as a back and forth type fight. Jones easy. Yes--lots of people. Jones was going to force Toney to move those feet. constantly. and Jones was never going to just stand in the pocket and let James throw his right hand counter. He sure didn't. Whenever Toney went to counter, Jones wasn't there. Tying into this was the speed of Jones===compared to Toney. How was James going to deal with that 2x as fast lead punch from Jones? Way too quick to counter and Jones moved immediately after throwing. So, I thought anyway, Toney would do nothing with that first punch fired at him. He'd try to deflect it with his hands or slip it. But he was going to be far out of position to do anything himself. It may have helped his chances if James was comfortable being the lead dog and aggressor. Hardly his style and Jones would still have been far too mobile for that to work. But James just plodding after him was exactly what a lot of folks thought would happen in a boring decision bout. A cut lip between the two would have been more physical damage than I would have expected. But some folks thought that Jones was going to stay in the pocket and trade like Barkley did. Completely different fight & Barkley was made to order for Toney. Jones' style was not and pretty much the polar opposite.
You write a lot about styles but the key factor for this bout not being competitive is that Toney was not in shape.
Oh come on. Toney not in shape for a fight of this magnitude at the time, just hollers excuse. Personally I thought Toney would have got to Roy eventually and stopped him, but RJJ what can you say during that fight...
Roy Jones was just about everyone’s choice as the best fighter in the world at that time so no, while some might have picked it as his toughest fight up to then, I don’t think anyone actually thought that Toney would win.
Not true. Many people thought Toney could pull it off, but Roy went up another gear and made it look easy. I lost money on that fight because of him!!
Had no idea about the result and watched it with a friend on YT some time ago (without spoiling me earlier). Thoughts were about some high quality boxing with Toney giving Jones problems due to his defensive skills. After half of the fight it was clear, that speed kills. But I didn´t expect Jones to be that dominant.
Actually, in late 1994 before the fight it was Toney who was acknowledged as a serious candidate for the pound for pound title (behind only Whitaker in most people's minds), not Roy. Jones had just about breached Ring Magazine's top ten in the last twelve months, but that was really based more on his promise and clearly outstanding athletic gifts rather than his in-ring achievements. Everyone knew Jones had potential but there was a feeling that he still hadn't been properly tested and had also been steered pretty carefully by his dad and Alton Merkerson (Hopkins only became a classy-looking win in retrospect, and beating him for the vacant IBF belt had been seen by some as a clever bit of matchmaking and a hell of a lot more safety-first than facing Jackson / McClellan for the WBC or Reggie Johnson for the WBA). Plenty of good pundits and genuine fans thought that Toney was too experienced and canny for Jones at that time (the article I've linked below states that Jones was actually a narrow betting underdog, for example, at 5-6 against). Hindsight has a way of obscuring the memory, and to younger fans now it might seem natural to think that everyone was backing Jones, because of what he went on to achieve and because we subsequently saw Toney's fall from grace afterwards, from which he didn't really recover until beating Jirov a whole nine years later. But whether they admit it or not, just as many people would have been backing Toney as they were Jones at the time. Not suggesting that anyone here is lying about thinking Jones was going to win it easily, by the way - just saying that this was not the general feeling in 1994. https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ICBJAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aAYNAAAAIBAJ&pg=5463,3189117
It was either Toney or Whitaker who held the number one spot.Toney was regarded as a somebody who could adapt to any style and fight his way of a y crisis
Gambling wise it was a gimme. It does not get any easier to make a big payday on relatively close odds. Similar in some ways to Cooney--Holmes. But most folks analyzed Toney based only on a few results where he looked good---Barkley & Nunn. But he dropped a ton of rounds against Nunn and it wasn't as if it was a bout where James dominated from the opening bell and the other guy finally wilted. Then you had the 2 close bouts with an old McCallum who had moved up in weight. Tough bouts but here was a guy coming into Toney, not a guy James was chasing.Plus it was Toney as the guy with youth on his side. And then of course the Tiberi bout which everyone casually ignored because it didn't justify their selection of Toney against Jones. Anybody that watched and scrutinized the Tiberi fight and could picture Jones in there instead, saw this as a one sided bout. Jones was not going to trade like Barkley or go for a ko. Jones was going to do what Tiberi did but about 2x as effective. As for the Toney excuse of the weight gain---who's fault is that? Jones's? That was another factor going into the fight & a strong one to consider---Jones was always in terrific shape and top condition. The question was always the other guy. So you factor that into things---a top condition guy always vs. the guy that is in top shape sometimes. And we can go one step further with the weight thing---if you give Toney a get out of jail free card because he had too much weight to drop===than go ahead and subtract the Barkley fight result because he did the same thing when he fought Toney.
Spot on. That summarizes exactly where things were. Two unbeaten fighters with one (Toney) much more proven than the other (Jones). I thought Toney would win and wasn't too happy when I saw the delayed coverage the next day.
