By Carlos Boogs
Former champion James Toney, 46-years-old, is far from the fighter that many experts once considered to be a pound-for-pound great.
On Saturday night at the Chase Hotel in St. Louis, Toney snapped a near two-year layoff to face what seemed like a safe opponent in heavyweight Charles Ellis (10-3-1, 8 KOs).
Not safe enough.
Ellis, 40-years-old himself and come off back to back defeats - including a knockout loss to Adam Kownacki last August- won a ten round unanimous decision over Toney (76-10-3, 46 KOs). The scores were 99-91, 98-92 and 97-93.
To make matters worse, Ellis was barely active himself, with serious inactivity spurts dating back to his pro debut in 2004.
Toney's last defeat (in his last fight) came in 2013, when he was outpointed by Jason Gavern in the Prizefighter tournament held in the UK. His weight for the Ellis bout was up as well. He weighed 217.5 for Gavern and came in at 231 for Saturday's fight.
His best days will always be as a middleweight and super middleweight. Some fighters are stubborn and choose to continue going. Some felt he was done after the Gavern loss and it wouldn't surprise anyone if Toney tried to fight again.