James Toney: No Longer Just a Boxer

James "Lights Out" Toney and Randy Couture will face off at UFC 118 in Boston, MA on August 28

Many see the upcoming Randy Couture - James Toney fight as MMA versus boxing. This is patently untrue. Toney has had to undergo eight or nine months of intensive grappling training just to get to where he can even hope to compete. Technically he is now a mixed martial artist with a huge imbalance in the mix. Even if you want to call him a pure boxer, if you think a Toney victory means boxing is superior to wrestling or MMA, think again.

For Toney and boxing to get the nod over MMA, Toney would have to run the gauntlet, just like any other fighter with a one dimensional game. Take Houston Alexander, a stellar performer in regional promotions and in his first UFC matches. In spite of his record, it soon became apparent how to approach him, as Thiago Silva demonstrated when his angles and superior striking skills took apart and took down the once impressive brawler and fisted his shaven head into the mat.  Or think of Damien Maia, perhaps the UFC’s most dangerous submission specialist, who was brutally KO’ed by Nate Marquardt. No matter how skilled a fighter is, someone will eventually put him in a place he doesn’t want to be. Just ask GSP about his first Serra fight. How would Yoda put it? A single victory does not a champion make.

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A large number of boxers seem to think they can catch clean the take down artist before the launch. Although possible, it’s just not likely. It’s a percentage game akin to breaking the house at Casino-Rama, and how many times are you ever going to break Casino-Rama? Stand-up clinches are also something Toney needs to worry about. Does he think his years of boxing, where the clinch isn’t allowed, will give him any advantage over a world-class Greco-Roman wrestler?

Toney will have to hit the KO button on each and every UFC fighter he faces before I’ll hand him a lit cigar. Think about the light heavyweight division and the fighters stacked therein, or the heavyweights Toney’s been calling out. Is Toney really going to run roughshod over those divisions?  Uh-uh, nope, not a chance.

I’m a huge fan of what boxing was, before it got fat and bloated and rife with corruption. I remember Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Roberto ‘Hands of Stone’ Duran, Hector ‘Macho’ Comacho, Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini and the great HW bouts in the 70’s, and I remember Iron Mike Tyson and his thorough destruction of boxing's heavyweights in the 80s. Boxing  arguably may be the best striking art to compliment an MMA fighter, as BJ Penn and Junior Dos Santos are demonstrating, but it is just one aspect.  

It doesn’t matter what skill a fighter has as his foundation, he will have to have all the tools in order to win more than a few fights in the cage. That’s not an opinion, that’s a fact. Where would Lesnar be with his wrestling if he hadn’t trained extensively in striking and learn how take and throw a stiff one, or to defend against BJJ submissions? In the contender pile, that’s where.

Boxing was once the premier fighting arena, but all you have to do is look around you to see that all anything ever does is change. It’s a new world, where MMA is the fastest growing sport in the world, within which boxing is one single branch on the tree, like BJJ or karate or college wrestling.

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Kudos to Toney for stepping up. It’s a testament to a personality that brought him title belts in several weight classes. Toney may catch Couture, but I doubt it. Even if Toney lasts more than a minute or two on the ground and gets up again (can’t imagine it) he’ll be sapped, like when GSP purposefully wrapped BJ Penn against the cage to tire the Hawaiian's shoulders, and his speed and timing will be off. Even if Toney beats The Natural he’ll have to fight again, and Joe Silva and Dana White will not play around. Sooner or later it’ll be lights out, Toney.

By Renko Styranka
ProFighting-fans.com MMA Staff Writer