The James Toney paradox
PLUS Fury-Wilder III ends up being one for the ages
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Of all boxers ever, James ‘Lights Out’ Toney is perhaps the one I most enjoy watching and writing about. His return to prominence in the 2000s, a run that came to a crescendo with Toney briefly capturing a version of the heavyweight title, is a major reason why my love for boxing is so strong today. What a talent he was in the ring, and what a character outside it. A mercurial boxer, he was also invariably outstanding at shooting himself in the foot. I don’t think we will be lucky enough to see many more fighters like James Toney again.
Now, at the age of 53 and light-years past his prime, he is scheduled to make a comeback later this month.
To say this feels ill-advised is an understatement, but even many of his great boxing moments have been shrouded in controversy; not least his 10 days as world heavyweight champion. The main body of this edition’s piece originally appeared in the great The 13th Round newsletter, and covers Toney’s unlikely journey as he returned to the summit of the sport in April 2005 - along with the events which unfolded almost instantly to knock him off his perch.
This time, it’s book-ended by the news that ‘Lights Out’ is, sadly, looking to get back into the ring…
James Toney’s false dawn
THE LONG READ
At his best, was James Toney the greatest defensive boxer of all time?
He at least has to be part of the discussion. The man was a true artist in the ring. His ability to shoulder roll his way out of trouble, combined with his genuine power and outstanding counterpunching, was a joy to behold when he was on form. He could trash talk with the best of them and had the inside game to back it up.
But he could also often be his own worst enemy. James Toney loved boxing, but hated training. He would do the bare minimum amount of cardio work, almost exclusively trained by sparring, and would routinely walk around at more than 200 pounds between fights. Many questioned his diet, and he often struggled to make weight. His performances could be hugely inconsistent at times, but he was still a two-weight world champion by the age of 24. He was also negligent about what he put into his body in between fights.
Most of the time, his natural boxing talent was enough to hide his indiscretions.
Eventually, though, it caught up with him, especially when he was matched against an opponent of similar stature.
In late 1994, Toney - then-IBF super-middleweight champ - defended against the IBF’s middleweight kingpin Roy Jones Jr. Both undefeated, both leading lights in the pound-for-pound discussions at the time, this was a fight which in hindsight matched up two all-time greats - but it was not an all-time great fight. Toney struggled to boil down to the 168-pound weight limit, and that was clearly visible on the night. Facing a fighter with the ability to exploit these training issues, Toney struggled throughout and Jones dominated the entire fight, utilising speed and skill to avoid occasional flurries and achieve a virtual shutout points win.
James Toney had lost his 0 in his 47th bout. He blamed being weight-drained; he wouldn’t fight at super middleweight again. A rematch never materialised, given the decisive nature of Roy’s win. Despite their paths never again crossing inside the ring, both Toney and Jones eventually shared the distinction of attempting to join a truly elite club in the 2000s.
Earlier this year, I chronicled the night in 2003 when Roy Jones made history by becoming only the second fighter to win world titles at both middleweight and heavyweight. Although their careers took divergent paths following their one-sided 1994 clash, James Toney - who had been saying he would one day be heavyweight champion of the world for most of his career - would eventually get the opportunity to be the third.
After the loss to Jones, ‘Lights Out’ fought predominantly at light heavy and cruiser against fighters who didn’t possess half of his ability. Somewhat directionless and invariably fighting his inner demons - but still demonstrating rare flashes of his greatness when he did fight - Toney was on the fringes of a sport in which he was once a leading light. By 1999, he had been out of the ring for more than a year and his career was officially going nowhere. As he made his return, however, Toney - aligned with new trainer Freddie Roach - insisted that he was a renaissance man and could recapture his elite status in the cruiserweight division.
Many doubted that he could win a world title at a third weight class, stating that James had squandered his talent, but Toney has never lacked self-confidence. He notched 10 wins in a row across the next four years, against fighters of varying degrees of quality, with Toney’s own stamina and conditioning gradually improving in line with his ranking.
This led to him being named mandatory challenger for Vassilly Jirov’s IBF cruiserweight title. Far from the bright lights of Vegas which had housed many of Toney’s previous biggest nights, their April 2003 contest took place at a casino in Connecticut. Being for the cruiserweight title, it was also within a division which had been given little mainstream attention for the past decade. Toney was yesterday’s news, and Jirov - despite being an Olympic gold medallist and undefeated world champion - was an Eastern European fighter who hadn’t ever really been on the mainstream radar.
This night was the rebirth of James Toney.
A bit of a forgotten classic, it’s fair to say this is one of my favourite fights ever. It should be mandatory viewing for anyone with even a passing interest in boxing. It was great not just for the action - a perfect, pulsating clash of Jirov’s aggressive, relentless pressure and a supremely motivated Toney’s outstanding, slick defensive counter-punching - but the legendary HBO presentation as well. After 11 fascinating, all-action rounds, the pivotal knockdown Toney achieves in the final 30 seconds of the last round is for me one of the iconic moments in boxing history. It is made even better when you factor in the fantastic commentary, including possibly the finest “Oh my god” ever, exclaimed by Emanuel Steward as announcers, crowd and viewers simultaneously lose their minds.
Reinvigorated, rededicated and back in the boxing spotlight once again, it was now time for Toney to make a concerted effort at achieving heavyweight glory, in the division he had long said would be his eventual home.
He moved up and stopped Evander Holyfield later the same year.
Although Holyfield was declining by this point, he was highly ranked and very few people dissected ‘The Real Deal’ like Toney did that night. The fight was waved off in the ninth following a heavy knockdown and rounds of fairly constant punishment.
Toney was subsequently named fighter of the year for 2003 by Ring Magazine, a whole 12 years after he had last won the award. It was a perfect platform from which to attempt to make good on his promise to win a world title in the glamour division of the sport.
The victories over Jirov and Holyfield made him a genuine heavyweight contender, a fascinating addition to a division which was some way from its artistic and commercial peak. Lennox Lewis had just retired after deciding against a rematch with Vitali Klitschko, and though Mike Tyson was still active until 2005 he was a shadow of his former self. As 2004 became 2005, the fighters who had taken their places at the top of the sport were not capturing the attention in the same way as their predecessors, so the rise of ‘Lights Out’ delivered a much-needed subplot.
Perhaps highlighting the weakness of the division at the time, Toney had soon maneuvered himself into a fight with WBA heavyweight champion John Ruiz - the very same man Roy Jones had defeated to lift the heavyweight title two years earlier.
Although history will not remember Ruiz as a heavyweight great by any stretch of the imagination, and he was far from the boxing critic’s choice at the time, he was amongst the division’s better fighters of the day. Though humbled by Jones in 2003, he still picked up wins against Rahman, Oquendo and Golota over the next two years. He was also a two-time WBA champion (once Jones decided to return from whence he came to the light heavyweight division).
Ruiz insisted that lightning would not strike twice and he would not lose for a second time to a former middleweight champion. For his part, Toney was no Ruiz fan, insisting in the build up that ‘The Quiet Man’ was “garbage and he's hurting boxing, so you'll never see this guy again.”
The man who had once weighed in at 160 as a middleweight now tipped the scales at 233, with Toney being 40 pounds heavier than Jones had been for his heavyweight title tilt. He was the cult hero and betting favourite as he entered the ring before an expectant, intrigued Madison Square Garden crowd on April 30th, 2005.
On the night, history did indeed repeat itself. Ruiz was controlled by the smaller man. Whereas Jones had used his movement to keep Ruiz at distance, Toney was happy to stand and trade, setting traps, winging in body shots, and taking a few himself on occasion to set up counterpunches. He managed a disputed knockdown in the seventh round which involved a combination of a left hook and a well-timed stepping on Ruiz’s foot. His weight might have ballooned, but Toney’s hand speed and quick thinking were unquestionable. Toney had rounds where he did little, perhaps conserving energy due to his larger frame, and it was more competitive than the definitive clinic Roy Jones had managed against Ruiz - but it was clear who had won the fight at the final bell.
Although many doubted his comeback, with scores of 116-111, 116-111 and 115-112, James Toney was the new heavyweight champion of the world.
‘Lights Out’ was hailed by many as the saviour of the heavyweights. Fight fans were falling out of love with the glamour division of boxing in the post-Lewis and Tyson era, but his emergence was a rare, genuine bright spot. Toney talked about his ambition to unify a splintered division and fight Vitali Klitschko and the other champions of the time. There was actual buzz in prizefighting once again… for a grand total of 10 days.
Toney barely had enough time to light his post-fight cigar before things started to fall apart. Less than two weeks later, it became clear that he had in fact tested positive for a banned anabolic steroid. Toney claimed it was due to something he had bought over the counter and that he was clean - “I don't do drugs, period” - but it mattered not.
The WBA stripped him of his newly won title and, just like that, James Toney’s heavyweight championship journey was over.
Ruiz, who had retired in the aftermath of the defeat complaining of being treated unfairly, rapidly reversed his decision and became the WBA champion anew. The spark which had momentarily restored excitement in the mid-2000s heavyweight division had almost instantly been snuffed out.
Though he continued to talk a good game for years to come, Toney would never recapture a world title in the division he said he was born to lead. He later fought Hasim Rahman to a majority draw with the WBC heavyweight title on the line, and had a pair of close, disputed losses to Samuel Peter. He was then popped for PEDS for a second time in 2007. This might have been enough to end the career of most fighters, but while it did end his time at a high level Toney was either unable or unwilling to hang up the gloves.
He even made a bizarre move into MMA to face the legendary Randy Couture at UFC 118 in 2010. The crushing first-round defeat was his one and only excursion into the Octagon.
He boxed professionally all the way until 2017 and his 92nd professional fight, suffering depressing defeats and snatching victories against fighters who often weren’t fit to lace up his boots, much like his old rival Roy Jones who eventually retired one year after Toney. Unlike Toney though, Jones’s historic achievement of going from middleweight title holder to becoming heavyweight champion of the world has not been scrubbed from the record books.
Although he sometimes cut a sad figure in his later years, James Toney’s contributions to the sport of boxing were still considerable. He is a fascinating character, full of bravado and bluster but with a strangely endearing ability to shoot himself in the foot at the worst possible moment. The man himself was clearly aware of his own shortcomings, in a rare moment of self-reflection…
“I've fought the best of each division I've been in and nobody's ever beaten James Toney — I've only ever beaten myself.”
Despite holding world titles across three weight classes (four, if you count heavyweight, of course), it demonstrates just how talented James Toney was that he can reasonably be said to have been an underachiever. Freddie Roach calls him the most naturally talented fighter he has ever trained. His lack of discipline and poor decision-making cost him and meant he spent large parts of his career in the boxing wilderness, not making the most of his gifts, but he was so skilled that he still managed to carve out huge success despite himself. Rewatching him in full flow is still thrilling to this day. A tragic genius in hindsight. We may never see his kind again.
For that magic 10 days in 2005, James Toney was on top of the boxing world, before he almost inevitably turned the lights out on his reign himself.
…And now here we are, 16 years after his blighted sojourn as heavyweight champ and four after he mercifully called it a day, faced with the prospect of Toney blighting his legacy further. Yes, it’s an exhibition, and, yes, he is facing 49-year-old Jeremy Williams - a former middling heavyweight who was knocked out by Henry Akinwande when challenging for the WBO world crown way back in 1996 - but I’d rather James Toney was nowhere near a boxing ring again. Anyone who has seen him interviewed in recent years can see that he has spent far too long in them already.
He loves the fight game though, and perhaps the paycheque will help as well.
The fight was originally announced as taking place on October 23rd, as part of a Celebrity Championship Boxing event promoted by Zab Judah in the US Virgin Islands. Judging by recent Instagram posts, however, it looks like it could now be happening on October 29th in a function room in Mexico. Who knows at this point, it’s all a bit confusing - and feels like a particularly low-rent way to bring back someone of his stature. I hope it ends up not going down at all. This feels ropey even in light of boxing’s current obsession with dragging famous fighters back for one more inglorious payday.
Being a fan of James Toney has long put you in a strange position: in full flight, he is undoubtedly a fighter whose in-ring abilities nobody could question; but simultaneously, his behaviour and actions have on occasion been difficult to defend. Watching him decline as he refused to walk away from the sport was also a dreadfully painful sight to behold. He will forever have a place in my (and many other boxing obsessive’s) heart, but Toney is a man of contradictions.
‘Lights Out’ is on the ballot for this year’s candidates to enter the Boxing Hall of Fame. For all his faults and mistakes, Toney was such a wonderful fighter that he absolutely deserves his place there.
I just wish, over anything, that he wasn’t risking more damage to himself by boxing again.
James Toney has long been his own man though, and done things his own way - for better AND for worse.
Instant classic
Well, Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder III ended up being quite something last weekend, didn’t it? It wasn’t the fight that we wanted, but it ended up being the fight we needed as the pair delivered a heavyweight title fight for the ages. Whatever your thoughts about the amount of punishment he ended up taking (and it did cross my mind periodically as the punishment began raining in round after round), Wilder showed incredible heart to last so long when he was so clearly knackered, drained and beaten down. If and when he does return to the ring, and his team have said he has no plans to retire any time soon, he still has some big fights out there to take.
Fury, on the other hand, again demonstrated his incredible powers of recuperation - I genuinely thought he was finished after the second knockdown achieved by Wilder in the fourth round. He also proved his supremacy by delivering the final blow of this rivalry, the face-first knockout in round 11 to retain the WBC (and lineal) heavyweight crown and ending what has to, surprisingly, go down as a top boxing trilogy.
In the end, it was Fury’s adaptability that made the difference; Wilder used a new tactic in round one which had some early success, utilising jabs to the body to set up the attack with the right hand, however as soon as he took his first serious shot from Fury towards the end of the round this was quickly abandoned. Fury was able to effectively switch his strategy based on the fight, something Wilder could not do. Although many will debate Deontay’s ability as a fighter, after Saturday night nobody can question his bottle. He has nothing to be ashamed of in his performance, however over the 30 rounds and three fights they have shared Fury has simply emerged as the better fighter - something which Wilder’s new trainer Malik Scott duly noted after the bout. Boxing needs fights like this which transcend the sport to truly deliver and this one certainly did. A word, too, for Fury’s trainer SugarHill Steward, whose Kronk style has turned Fury from a fighter many saw as boring to one who is now guaranteed box office.
Not the most technically outstanding heavyweight fight I’ve ever seen, but absolutely one of the most exciting. A truly pulsating contest that has done a world of good for the glamour division of boxing.
What happens next in the heavyweight landscape, which has suddenly opened up after a year of not much with two huge fights in a few weeks, will be fascinating. Eddie Hearn has confirmed that Anthony Joshua has activated the rematch clause with new WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, with that fight earmarked for March 2022. The WBC has stated that Fury’s next fight as champion will either be for undisputed against Usyk (unlikely, given the Joshua rematch) or against Dillian Whyte - should the latter come through his fascinating clash with Otto Wallin in London on October 30th, which headlines a show that will be previewed in the next Double Dutch. Whyte has been on the cusp of a world title fight for years, on and off, and a fight with Fury would be a blockbuster. Were he to lose to Wallin, however, he would of course also lose his top contender status. Presumably once this has all been shaken out, we could be in a position to crown an undisputed heavyweight champion later in 2022. This is boxing remember, so of course that may not end up happening for any number of reasons. Let’s stay positive though, and say it WILL happen next year…I think.
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