By Doug Fischer
I’ve got good news and bad news to report from Reseda, California.
The good news is that James Toney is back and looking about as sharp as I’ve seen him in four or five years.
However, for more than a few fans, that’s also the bad news.
After Toney was dropped and dominated by Samuel Peter in their rematch last January there was a sizable contingent of fans around the world who happily said “good-bye, James.” Sadly, many of those fans used to love watching Toney work his craft and talk his trash back when he was the middleweight and super middleweight champ.
However, much of the respect Toney earned during his glory years and during his amazing comeback year of 2003, when he beat then-undefeated Vassiliy Jirov for the IBF cruiserweight title in a classic 12-round confrontation and then dominated 3-to-1 favorite Evander Holyfield to a ninth-round stoppage, was gradually stripped away by his often frustrating heavyweight campaign, which was pockmarked by persistent injuries, layoffs, excessive weight gain, and testing positive for banned substances.
During Toney’s four-and-half-year stay at heavyweight he proved skilled and experienced enough to easily dominate second- and third-tier fighters like Dominick Guinn and Rydell Booker, but was only talented enough to hold his own with big, strong world-class heavyweights like Peter and Hasim Rahman, who he will fight this Wednesday in a Fox Sports Net-televised bout at the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula.
Wednesday’s 12-round bout for the vacant NABO heavyweight title will be a rematch of their March 18th, 2006 WBC title fight that ended in a draw. Most observers believed that the better conditioned and more active Rahman deserved a decision victory over Toney, who weighed in at a career-high 237 and appeared so flabby that HBO commentator Jim Lampley described his physique as “looking like a tub of goo”.
The same fans who compared the prime Toney to legends like Marvin Hagler were disgusted by the fat man they saw flail away with lesser talented big men.
Most fight fans could forgive Toney for not being able to overpower his naturally bigger foes at heavyweight, but they were frustrated but what appeared to be a lack of discipline and conditioning on his part.
Toney’s manager, cornerman and confidant John Arthur all but guarantees that his fighter is motivated and in the kind of condition to put on a show vs. Rahman the second time around, but he bristles when people say Toney was not in shape for most of his heavyweight fights.
“I hate it when I hear that because it’s untrue,” Arthur said before Toney sparred eight rounds this past Saturday in a private gym inside the 360 Health Club in Reseda. “Too many people judged James because of his belly. He’ll never have a six pack. He didn’t have a six pack when he fought at middleweight. But just because he had a belly doesn’t mean he wasn’t in shape.
“You can’t go 12 rounds with John Ruiz, Hasim Rahman and Samuel Peter if you’re not in shape. If James wasn’t in shape for those fights, Ruiz and Rahman would have run over him; Peter would have knocked him out.
“James’s problem in most of his fights is that he was not 100% healthy. He had injuries. The Achilles tendon tear [suffered while training for Jameel McCline in January of ‘04] and the bicep/triceps tear [which occurred during his 12-round bout with Booker in September of ‘04] set him back.
“He caught the flu a week before the Rahman fight, and James is the type of guy who won’t let you pull him out of fight no matter what.
“But he was so sick hours before the fight that we didn’t even warm up in the dressing room. James just sat there with a blanket wrapped around him because he had the chills.
“I haven’t told anyone this, and James would never use it as an excuse, but he had an injury going into the rematch with Peter. I had to leave camp to work the corner of another one of my fighters out of state and I told [Billy Blanks] not to have James run outside in the mornings. He doesn’t like it and he’s not a morning person, but they put him on a track in the morning and he pulled a calf muscle one week before the fight.
“He had to stay off it going into the fight and he felt it in the dressing room, but you know James. He told me ‘Don’t worry Pops, I got this’. After the third round he told me in the corner ‘Pops, I can’t push off my back leg, but don’t worry, I’m gonna catch him comin’ in. But he never got the chance to do that. Sammy got off with the jab and then backed off for the rest of the fight.”
Toney wouldn’t go into specifics about his sickness or injuries going into his first bout with Rahman or the rematch with Peter, but he did offer this,
“I wasn’t 100% and they still couldn’t do nothin’ with me,” he said. “Now what’s Rahman going to do when I’m healthy and injury free?”
That’s the big question going into this rematch. Is Toney healthy? Can a man one month shy of his 40th birthday, whose pro career has spanned 20 years and 80 pro fights, get into fighting shape without suffering some kind of injury or illness?
Arthur says Toney can and has done just that.
“There are no injuries, he’s had good sparring with good sparring partners, and he’s got a great report with his new trainer, Shadeed Saluki,” said Arthur, “there’s no way he’s not going to perform this Wednesday. James is going to perform.”
Toney’s sparring partners have included 6-foot-3 280-pound John Clark, Javier Mora, Jerome Tabb, Raphael Butler, Malik Scott and Lamon Brewster. This past Saturday, he went five rounds with Mora and three rounds with the former WBO heavyweight titlist, and I must say that he looked as poised, active and accurate as I’ve seen him since his 2003 camp for the Holyfield fight.
Toney agrees with that observation.
“This is the best I’ve felt since my fight with Holyfield,” he said after his sparring session, running four miles on a treadmill and 30 minutes of abdominal work. “People think I wasn’t training hard for or taking the other heavyweights I fought after Holyfield seriously, but that wasn’t it. My problem was that after I beat Holyfield I thought I had to be a heavyweight to fight at heavyweight.
“I started listening to the wrong people, lifting all these crazy weights and bulking up, and eating way too much, eating the wrong kind of foods. When I had to take time off from my injuries all I did was lift weights and when my boxing camp started, I still ate whatever I wanted, so I came in heavier than I should have been.”
How much does he weigh now? He wouldn’t tell me Saturday, but don’t expect to see a flat stomach or trim waist during tomorrow’s weigh-in. Toney’s got a belly on him. It’s not as flabby as it was for the Ruiz bout or the first Rahman fight, but it’s far from solid. However, it’s probably exactly how a 39-year-old natural middleweight’s stomach should look like above 220 pounds.
But his body shape isn’t what’s important, it’s his fighting shape that counts, and from the looks of the sparring I witnessed (and intrepid MaxBoxing videographer Brian Harty captured for our members) he’s as elusive as ever and pin-point accurate with his punches.
During the first round with Mora, a local heavyweight with 21-4-1 (17) record, Toney worked mostly on his head- and upper-body movement – probably just to help warm-up his body – but he did so much ducking and dipping and slipping that he resembled a giant Pernell Whitaker. By the end of the round, however, he was looking and sounding like vintage Lights Out, blocking and countering with lead right hands just before the bell and hollering “Come on! Come on! I got more for you!”
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