Toney fights tonight, down to 217lb

[ArtOfWar]

Toney is an all-time great in my eye's, the man was pure class even in his mid thirties. Could have lived in any era with ease. As has already been mentioned though, his lack of discipline let him down a lot. He was cutting stupid amounts of weight in his middle/super middleweight day's. He should be straight into the hall of fame when he's eligable.

[Counter-puncher]

He was landing lots of body shots, they were behind his confidence. If you are in-close with a guy and feel his strength sapping then surely that is a basis for confidence? Especially if the body shots you are landing are a big part of the reason for why the guy is tiring?

Nunn stopped moving at one point late in the fight and traded straight shots with Toney, coming off worse in the exchange, he was Toney’s from that point onwards. Couple this with the way Nunn was bullied on the ropes, and almost over them, and you have more than a vague hope that a guy will tire, you have someone working the body, taking the play away and generally knowing the game well enough to believe that the man will go when the time comes. The time came and Toney took the KO brilliantly.

We’ll have to fundamentally disagree if you think that there was nothing going for Toney in that prior to the five minutes before the end. Nunn looked a done deal when he allowed Toney to half-bully him over the ropes. Body shots, pressure and a will to win got Toney that result, similar to the Chavez-Taylor fight, Chavez won it late, sure, but does that mean that nothing was happening for him prior to the late surge? Taylor was busted up facially, Nunn was hammered to the body, his weight problems were well documented and Toney forced his style onto Nunn, who changed tack as the fight progressed. Sure, Nunn was ahead on the cards but the cards are tallied after the bell goes for the final round, unless you box under open scoring the cards are irrelevant until that final bell goes.

Ha! How interesting. I was reading your first two paragraphs and thought "you know, it's about six years since I saw this fight, and I've only seen it once, so maybe I'll go back and revisit; perhaps I'm wrong; perhaps I'll go back and it'll be like Chavez -- Taylor," and then there you go and say exactly that. I tell you what. I'll bow to your view, with doubts, and rewatch it at the first opportunity.

Toney does struggle with lateral movement. Yet he defeated Nunn, a mover, by slowing him down, overcame Johnson, who moved well, and generally fared well against movers until losing to an absolute peak Roy Jones. This after shifting over a stone in weight the day before the weigh in, which is hardly a major crime.

No one’s saying that Toney is an all-time great, not that I’ve seen on this thread, but we are saying that he had fantastic ability and skills, and that is a fair statement to make based on what he could do in the ring when fully fit and focussed. He did beat A-grade guys, men like McCallum (good enough to win titles post-Toney, and was who was not disgraced by Jones at LHW), Nunn and Holyfield.

Jirov was looking very good pre-Toney, then he gets hammered to the canvas in the final round, is left bewildered and bruised and moves up in weight, and you say that his subsequent bad form is wholly independent of what Toney did to him? Yet Toney loses every round to Jones and falls into a pit of bad form and worse living, and this is somehow a testament to how badly Jones beat him? Why not apply the same thinking to Toney-Jirov? Toney ruined Jirov, people quibble over the decision but he visibly reduced a big, strong and skilful boxer to ruins that night (who had the supposed-Kryptonite of body shots). You could say that the post-fight fade of Jirov is evidence that he wasn’t much to start with, but his pre-Toney fights show that he had a lot and that Toney took a lot from him.

Holyfield was old, he was slow, and he was finished in the eyes of many, but he is still hanging in with decent fighters, Toney demolished him, giving him a worse beating than Lewis and Bowe did, and guess what? Holy was said to be slow, old and was finished when Lewis and Bowe (in the rubbermatch) defeated him. Toney didn’t just happen to be there when Holyfield fell over, he put him over and battered him in a way that we’ve not seen before nor since.

Standing in front of Rahman, who KO’d Lewis, Peter, who bounced Wlad around, Ruiz, who is grimly effective and Holyfield adds to Toney’s mystique, in my mind. Here is a guy with tiny fists who stands right in front of bigger men and has it out with them. He doesn’t hand pick opponents and then skate about the ring picking up points. I like him for the same reasons I like John Murray, different styles but that same ethos, knowledge that you need to be in front of your guy in order to have the best chance of landing shots. It is thrilling edge of the razorblade stuff.

No one is saying that Toney is ATG #1; we’re just admiring a guy who had a stellar career despite his own destructive faults. Jones may be remembered with more esteem but we never saw Toney unconscious in the ring, we never saw Toney blasted out by a single shot.

For my money, Toney is looked on so fondly because he actually embodies what boxing is about. It is all about hitting your opponent cleanly in the target/scoring areas, not using movement to create as much space as possible before diving in for quick raids, often non-scoring raids. It gets depressing when you see these athletic guys (Tim Bradley springs to mind, god-awful boxer but able to get in and around the top) win titles on the basis that they throw a lot of leather, we’re seeing an increase in athleticism and a decrease in skills, so a guy like Toney gets treasured. He is boxing’s Clint Eastwood, refusing to go down the CGI route and turning out performances that have a bit of authenticity.

To return to the Jirov fight. At one point the ring logo causes Toney to slip a little, Toney doesn’t immediately bound five paces back and gesture towards the ref. He was in the process of moving forward to throw a shot, his leading leg slips a little, his stance widens, so he just adjusts his shoulders, takes another half-step inside, and whacks Jirov with a few shots. Little things like that, or when he was in-close with Holyfield, who was stronger than him, and he slipped his hand onto Holy’s left bicep to kill the left hook before it even started.

In a few years, when we are watching two athletes throw badly-picked shots while the judges just sit there counting, we’ll look on Toney fondly, but with perspective, and I think that is what people have been doing on this thread. Talking objectively about a what could have been, not making big statements about Toney's status.

I find it difficult to disagree with much you're saying here, and I suspect we might be trying to calculate how many angels can dance on the tip of a pin, here, because I think the difference between our views is actually insignificant.

I just got the impression that people here were getting a little over hyped about Toney's ability, and potential. I think Toney had a pretty exceptional career, and that he deserves great credit.

I just wouldn't put him quite up on the very top tier of the last 20 years.

Meantime, I think the McCallum - Jones fight is mitigated by Jones's virtual hero worship of the Body Snatcher and having one of those nights where he really didn't want to devastate. On Jirov, it was certainly a the biggest cruiserweight fight since Holyfield moved up, and I remember being tremendously excited before, and genuinely thrilled at the outcome of what was a brilliant fight and performance by Toney.

Certainly, the (competitive) beating Toney gave Jirov could be said to have effected him, but by the same token, I'm not sure that that victory -- beating the best of a very weak division, who didn't do anything after that, irrespective of reason -- can quite drag him into the very top tier. Even if we say that Jirov was ruined by Toney, can we put that win higher than Calzaghe's against Lacy? Perhaps a little because Calzaghe was at his weight, but I think these are things to bear in mind.

If Toney had achieved what he did by fighting like Jake La Motta, I'm not sure we would rate him at all, but he was just sublime to watch, so we do.

Anyway, like I say, I love Toney and do rate him, but just not as high as he rates himself, or as high as the (perhaps mistaken) impression I got of people here.

i am wholly in agreement with terry d here and thank him for taking issue with one of my least favourite forum cliches. excellent posts.

terry the tim you refer to (after which Nunn was all Toney's) was, i believe, round 9.