vitali style wouldnt work against valuev. I can see valuev upsetting vitali. vitalis whole style is designed to fight short fighters. against a 7'0 figteer, he negates all of vitalis tools.....valuev will be able to connect on vitali trying to lean back with his hands low
That was before Rahman was set to fight Barrett when both Vitali and Toney were open and Toney was coming off the steroid use against Ruiz. Toney was open for negotiations at that point and ready to make a fight, Vitali sent him an offer since there was no one else for either man and he wanted to stay active before fighting Rahman. Toney turned him down and Vitali had to wait for Rahman/Barrett to be over with. Both men were open and ready for negotiations, team Toney demanded more money and priced themselves out basically. When Vitali retired Toney started talking trash again, he stopped all the trash talking after he was officially called out and turned him down till Vitali retired to save face.
It must have been in summer 2005 then. I thought it was in the beginning of 2005. Whatever, I remember something about Toney not wanting to fight for 'chump change' as he put it. Maybe that offer really just wasn't attractive enough to take that risky fight? There's a possibility Vitalis team really didn't want to pay **** for Toney to come to Germany? Anyways Vitali had a belt, Toney came of a steroid suspension and should've taken the fight if the deal was serious. He had a better chance beating Klitschko back then than today. I don't know why his team turned it down, but in any case I don't think it has to do something with Toney being scared, he never was in his nearly 20 year career and he took a fight with Sam Peter when he didn't have to - the Sam Peter who just knocked down the better Klitschko three times one year before that and was the most feared man in the division at the time. Bottom line is, the fight wouldn't have come off anyways because Vitali couldn't get past training camp and just imagine Toneys trash talking with Vitali not fighting because of his injuries... all this fight would have resultet in for Toney is him waiting needlessy around for Vitali to get healthy before retiring and then fighting Rahman anyways, and probably even fatter...
14 years ago in the time frame i quoted toney was beaten by jones and was an ex champ. so by that what belt would he be defending ? toney fought 1 time in europe and he fought at a neutral venue, i think it was monaco without looking it up v an italian. monaco is about as far removed from the lions den as george bush is to serving in vietnam. its a multi millionaire`s playground where if you left a $100 bill on your windscreen and came back in an hour`s time it would still be there. toney was basically a contender for all but 1 month of this 14 year period. henry maske and D/M were the champs at 175 and toney was champ of nothing , yet you say toney should not travel to the uk or germany . d/m for example got paid about 8 million euros a year in this period, toney about 2 million. there were only 2 champs for long periods of this timeframe at light heavy which were D/M and roy jones. over the last 10 years there has been a lot of money to be made at cruiser in europe, but toney never took part. at heavy all the top fighters and big purses are in europe yet toney fights in america only. all toneys choices he is free to travel or not, but i beleive facts speak for themselves, toney has not been willing over the last 14 years to fight european fighters in europe which is why he has only had 1 world title win in all that time. he was not frozen out , he simply prefers homecooking is the obvious conclusion.
Yes...I think James would do better but Valuve would win some rounds....I think he might get stopped. But Vitali looked pretty dominant with Peter so I'd say he beats both men convincingly. I have high hopes for James but realistically at this stage he's very old and I'm not sure if he'd have the same chance at beating Vitali he did 4 yrs ago.
Toney-Maske was in discussion but Toney lost the first to Griffin fight. Maske then never offered a fight to Toney. DM-Toney was never in discussion. DM was very good at a time Toney lost the Griffin and Thadzi fights. I have no doubt Toney would have fought him if the opportunity would have presented. If Valuev offers Toney a fight for December, I have no doubt James will accept it. But Valuev prefers to take on Holyfied. And for Toney not fighting European fighters, just look at his resume, it speaks for itself, the man is not afraid of anyone and he fought the Russian Jirov, so what do you want.