James Toney Outpoints, Dethrones WBA Champion
By David P. Greisman
John Ruiz was the bad cold that heavyweight boxing just couldn’t shake.
With the Chelsea, Mass., native’s unsightly and unorthodox jab-and-grab style, promoter Don King had difficulty filling seats and selling pay-per-view buys whenever “The Quiet Man” was involved.
Making matters worse, an assortment of heavyweight challengers was never able to defeat Ruiz, henceforth exterminating boxing’s marquee division from nights of clinch-riddled snooze-fests.
In a dreadful trilogy with Evander Holyfield, Ruiz went 1-1-1, earning him the WBA championship and the privilege of residing in a piece of the heavyweight spotlight.
Instead, Ruiz provided lowlights, including a foul and foul-filled tenth round disqualification victory over Kirk Johnson.
When Roy Jones Jr. stepped up from light heavyweight in March of 2003, he handpicked Ruiz as the proper target for accomplishing history and becoming only the second former middleweight to win a heavyweight title.
Jones won easily, stripping Ruiz of his belt, and it was reasonable to believe that the New Englander would fade away.
It wasn’t to be.
Jones returned to 175 pounds to answer Antonio Tarver’s challenge, and the vacated WBA title would be contested between Ruiz and Hasim Rahman.
Ruiz beat Rahman by unanimous decision, and the scourge had returned. April 2004 brought a wrestling match between Ruiz and Fres Oquendo, and seven months later he and Andrew Golota earned the dubious distinction of participating in a bout in which there were more clinches than landed punches.
Enter James “Lights Out” Toney, the big-mouthed veteran with a big opportunity to get a big victory, one that would benefit both he and the whole of boxing. Enter James Toney, the cure.
Like a miracle treatment imported to wipe out a plague, Toney came to Madison Square Garden in New York City on April 30 with the sport’s spectators hoping for his success. After twelve rounds and with the announcement of judges’ scorecards as reading 116-111 (twice) and 115-112 in favor of the Ann Arbor, Mich., resident, the mission had been accomplished. James Toney, 69-4-2 with 43 knockouts, had defeated John Ruiz, displacing the latter’s class with entertaining crass, forcing “The Quiet Man” to skulk, well, quietly to his dressing room.
Using hard right hands to the body paired with overhand rights that countered Ruiz and stopped him in his tracks, James Toney fought patiently, calmly and intelligently, ducking punches, controlling the action, earning respect and making the champion’s habit of going inside and clinching work against him.
Ruiz, who moves to 41-6-1 (28), did his usual jabbing and grabbing, but coming in close meant that Toney would punish him with hooks to the body, shots that landed enough times that red welts formed on Ruiz’s left side.
Staying on the outside meant that Ruiz was off his game, and with his offense limited to jabbing from a distance, Toney was able to land counters, sap his opponent’s energy and pick up rounds.
Surprisingly overturning the accepted logic, Ruiz was at his most effective when he clinched less and let his hands go in combinations. But as Toney’s bodywork tired the larger Ruiz out in the finishing stanzas of the fight, he would revert to old form, ineffective and in effect, costing him crucial points on the judges’ tally sheets.
The first four rounds ended with the score tied at two apiece, with Toney landing cleaner in the first and fourth, but with Ruiz’s stiff jab and flowing combinations earning him the second and third.
In the fifth round, Ruiz was already feeling the effects of Toney’s body shots, as he came out passively, giving “Lights Out” the freedom to land overhand rights upstairs and hooks to the body.
Round six was a slower round that Toney essentially gave away, and at the midway point each pugilist had won three heats.
The match would begin to turn in Toney’s direction within the first ten seconds of round seven, when a one-two combination, along with a left hand that landed while “Lights Out” was on Ruiz’s foot, sent the champion staggering to the ropes, where a glove touched the canvass to prevent a fall.
Referee Steve Smoger incorrectly called a knockdown, giving Toney a two point round and earning Ruiz an admonishment from trainer Norman Stone, who directed his charge to keep his hands up.
In round eight, Ruiz would again hit the mat, this time as a result of a slip, which Smoger caught. Out of breath, Ruiz began to throw one punch at a time, grabbing onto Toney in-between, and Toney won the round, giving him a 77-74 lead.
With the ninth, Toney again took off for three minutes, giving the round to Ruiz based on his being more active.
By the time the rounds hit double digits, Ruiz was drained and easier to hit. Three right hands in the final twenty seconds gave Toney the tenth, and with Ruiz clinching up a storm in rounds eleven and twelve, “Lights Out” only needed to land cleanly to earn the points and the decision.
The victory puts James Toney in the enviable position of choosing which of the three other titlists he fights next, as he seeks unification and bragging rights over the bums he feels inhabit the heavyweight division.
In a post-fight interview with HBO’s Larry Merchant, Toney mentioned that he would like to take on WBC beltholder Vitali Klitschko, but also did not rule out an all-Michigan showdown with the IBF champ Chris Byrd. Klitschko is currently recovering from minor back surgery, and is scheduled to face mandatory contender Hasim Rahman upon his return. Byrd does not yet have his next defense set.
Ruiz retreated from the ring without comment, and it is likely that in private conversations with Stone, his trainer, manager and friend, Ruiz will ask important questions and seek their answers.
Can Ruiz regain a heavyweight belt? And if he does, can he entertain, finally earning the big money that should come along with success? John Ruiz is the opposite of reprehensible when outside of the squared circle, but his boxing style inspires fanatical rooting against him.
James Toney, on the other hand, is a foul-mouthed trash talker who says things that would make a sailor blush, but in the ring he is old school, all cool, and the new WBA heavyweight champion.
Coincidentally, in his loss to James Toney, John Ruiz was dethroned by another former middleweight. Unlike Jones, though, “Lights Out” has no plans to leave the land of the large, and he will try to cure another nasty ailment: heavyweight title blight.
