16.03.06 – By Bryan Amador: This Saturday night, James Toney (69-4-2, 43 KO’s) and Hasim Rahman meet up for the WBC heavyweight championship bout in Atlantic City, New Jersey. So far, this fight has generated a scarce whisper with few people really getting excited about it, although, I, for one, think this may turn out to be one of the better heavyweight fights for 2006. That being said, I clearly don’t see either of these guys as revitalizing the heavyweight division, something has been bandied about quite a bit as of late. These guys are good, no doubt, yet neither of them are particularly exciting to watch, especially Rahman (41-5-1, 33 KO’s), who’s clumsy style of fighting simply bores me to tears, making me want to reach for my channel changer.
Still, Rahman does his job and wins his fights, at least lately he’s been winning, that is, but in his big fights against John Ruiz, David Tua, Lennox Lewis and even Evander Holyfield, Hasim has come up lacking and looking bad in losing efforts.
At best, he’s a limited knockout artist, who tends to fade late in fights, usually by the 8th round when his usually strong chin turns to butter. In Hasim’s last bout against Monte Barrett, on August 13, 2005, he fought poorly and had a difficult time dealing with Barrett’s constant ring movement.
From my stand point, It almost looked like a bull fight, with Rahman making wild charges, throwing wildly and missing, while Barrett calmly stepped aside and landed punches to the side of Rahman’s head. Granted, Barrett had few offensive tools to keep Rahman off of him, which is why Barrett ultimately ended up losing the bout, however, he made it close and hurt Rahman on a couple of occasions with right hand shots, that snapped back Rahman’s head and had his legs rubbery in the 12th round. Barrett, if he had sense enough to understand Rahman’s plight, he could possibly pounced on Rahman and ended the fight with one or two, well placed, right hands. If you ask me, this fight seems like a blue print for the Toney fight, as I see the same thing happening, except that once Toney has Rahman hurt, he won’t let him off the hook.
James Toney, although short at 5’9″ and slightly rounded in appearance, is an outstanding boxer of the first order, with an ability to counter punch that is second to none in the heavyweight division. Frankly, there’s no one from the middleweights to the heavyweight division that has skills as good as Toney’s. Originally, Toney was a middleweight, and a successful one that that, winning the IBF middleweight championship by knocking out Michael Nunn in the 11th round, in May 1991.
Toney then defended the title until 1993, when he moved up to the Super Middleweight division, capturing the title from Iran Barkely. Following that, Toney won his next 10 fights in the Super middleweight division, before losing a decision to Roy Jones Jr., in November 1994. To be fair, Toney didn’t appear to be in the best of shape for the Jones fight, and admitted as much afterwards, yet he still fought well and made the fight close up until the end.
In his next bout, in February 1995, Toney lost a close decision to Montell Griffin, a fight that I personally feel was bit of a robbery. I don’t know what fight the judges were watching on that night, as Toney stalked Griffin all night, and won all the exchanges, and yet, he still lost. Toney turned things around and won the WBU light heavyweight title in August 1996, by knocking out Duran Williams. He then moved up yet again, defeating Steve Little to win the IBO Cruiserweight title in June 1997. Finally, perhaps needing more challenges, if not money, Toney moved up to the heavyweight division in October 2003, stopping Evander Holyfield in the 9th round. Rydell Booker was his next opponent at heavyweight, yet he proved to be nothing more than a punching bag for Toney, who easily defeated him by unanimous 12-round decision, in September 2004. This led to Toney’s bout with John Ruiz in April 2005, for Ruiz’s WBA heavyweight title. Despite totally dominating and winning the fight by 12-round decision, the fight was ruled a “no contest” when afterwards, a banned substance showed up in Toney’s medical tests. Instead of getting down on himself, Toney rebounded from this bout and easily defeated Dominick Guinn by 12-round unanimous decision, on October 2005.
So, when looking at the outcome for this fight, I tend to want to look at what has happened in the past, especially the recent past for both fighters. While Rahman has beaten up a string of journeymen in his last 10 fights, he’s also lost three of his fights, to the likes of Lennox Lewis, John Ruiz and Evander Holyfield. Whereas, Toney has won all of his last ten fights, minus the no contest against Ruiz, and dominated each one of them, over fighters such as Evander Holyfield, Vasilly Jirov and John Ruiz. Thus, from a comparison standpoint, Toney comes out ahead in my book. Yes, I understand the old saying, “Styles make fights,” however, even when looking at this from a style standpoint, Toney has a style that is all wrong for Rahman. For one, Rahman usually does his best fighting at a distance, where he likes to punch and dive into his opponents and try to mug them on the inside. That won’t work against Toney, no way. If Rahman tries throwing one of his usual big right hands, Toney will duck, causing the punch to miss and then Rahman will be inside Toney’s punching range and will get counter punched over and over by Toney. No doubt, Toney’s short arms will be an asset for the inside fighting, as he’ll be able to get a lot of leverage on his punches, whereas Rahman’s power will be effectively smothered. By the 7th round, I predict that Toney will have Rahman out on his feet and helpless, while Toney batters him repeatedly with right hands, causing the referee to step in and mercifully stop the brutal, one-sided beating.