Fantasy Fights, or Dream Fights, they are the current trend, as no actual boxing is taking place due to, well, you know what. Recently, fans have been asked to ponder who would have won between the likes of Tyson and Frazier, Ali and Tyson, Leonard and Mayweather, even Robinson and Mayweather.
But what about this one? How would this one have gone, and how massive would it have been on P-P-V!
James Toney, the IBF middleweight king, against Gerald McClellan, the WBO 160 pound king. Who wins?
McClellan, trained by the great Emanuel Steward, wiped out a reasonable fighter in Carl Sullivan in May of 1992, and then “The G-Man” called out Toney. 24-year-old McClellan had, in November of 1991, taken out John “The Beast” Mugabi to take the belt, and he was, as Steward would later say his “meanest fighter.”
Toney, who was having serious problems making 160 pounds at this time, had just beaten Glenn Wolfe in his most recent fight. The 23-year-old “Lights Out” had, in May of 1991, beaten Michael Nunn to become IBF champ.
So again, if these two meet in the late summer of 1992, who wins?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDSykI30RCQ
Toney might well have been vulnerable against the raw power, the speed, and aggression of McClellan, who was 25-2(23) at the time. Despite his granite chin, would Toney, then 32-0-2(21) have come closer than ever to being stopped had he boxed McClellan at middleweight? On the other hand, would the classic old-school skills of Toney have seen to it that the less experienced fighter from the Kronk Gym was soundly outboxed?
The early rounds, where McClellan was at his most lethal, his most ferocious, would have been extremely interesting. Had Toney got through these rounds, and if he saw McClellan’s attack fade, then it would have been Toney’s fight. We never did see McClellan box a full 12 rounds in his entire career; the ill-fated fight with Nigel Benn, which ended in the tenth-round, being his final bout. But who knows, maybe against Toney, McClellan’s bomb of a right hand would have prevented this fight from going the distance.
It’s so hard to envisage Toney, a man with one of the greatest chins in boxing history, being KO’d or stopped; heck, even heavyweights, were unable to halt Toney. But McClellan really was a pure punching machine, and when he had Steward guiding him, McClellan was in very good hands indeed. In fact, this battle of the trainers, of the boxing masterminds – between Steward and Toney’s trainer Bill Miller – would have been one helluva fascinating sidebar to the actual fight.
Looking back now, with all we know, James Toney would have to be the pick to have won, but don’t forget how McClellan also had good boxing skills; his amateur career seeing him defeat both Roy Jones and Michael Moorer. Of all the oft-talked about Dream Fights there are, this one is the most mind-boggling, the toughest to picture in the mind.
What do you think – A distance fight? A McClellan KO? A Toney KO? A draw? One of the best fights ever?
Maybe.
