By Terence Dooley
Many people are pouring flames on Toney’s funeral pyre ahead of this weekend’s big clash at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles, where Toney takes on Samuel Peter of Nigeria, yet they may have stoked up a different kind of fire inside of Toney. Come Saturday we will not be putting Toney on the pyre, he will, instead, be standing over it cooking up more choice cuts from his incredible heavyweight journey. Toney turning up for a cremation and not cooking himself some marvellous stuff to make his mouth water is not an option.
Toney versus ‘Nigerian Nightmare’ Sam Peter is a clash the heavyweight division has been crying out for and many are expecting the, allegedly, we will get to that, big-hitting Peter to close the lights on the career of James Toney. I just do not see it that way.
When the fight was made I did not start to experience fear and trembling at the demise of Toney. My first thought was: “So Toney is going to school a big, lumbering heavyweight once again.”
Consider: we keep hearing that one day the former middleweight Toney will be hit by a big-hitting heavyweight and go. So far he has been hit by Evander Holyfield, John Ruiz and Hasim Rahman and is yet to be hurt let alone carried from the ring on a stretcher with his middleweight jaw line severely fractured. So now we must ask whether Toney has truly proven his mettle at the weight or whether he is yet to be hit by a genuine puncher such as Peter.
That for me is the crux of the matter. Hasim Rahman is a genuinely big hitter, as was Lennox Lewis; even Holyfield could muster more steam in his left hooks, for my money, than Peter can. Peter laid out Jeremy Williams with a heavy punch sure, has he produced a right hand of the ilk Rahman laid out Lewis with? Or the kind of crisp left hook that saw Holyfield dump Tyson onto the seat of his pants, Riddick Bowe also?
I say all this despite of, or maybe because of, the evidence given by the destruction of Jeremy Williams who was wiped out by a single Peter’s left hook. Now, the KO itself was fairly spectacular but on the other hand Williams’ guard was loose and his chin was hung in the air resplendent with big neon, sign saying: “Brittle when hit!” Peter threw a wide left hook with a predictable arc and KO’d Williams, so?
Do not forget that this is the same Jeremy Williams who has a cast-iron jaw and an indefatigable will to get up off the floor and win. Or maybe not. Williams had been dropped and stopped before, his file was marked ‘Chinny Contender who will not trouble the top-boys’ and he was a perfect launch pad for the over hyping of the Peter punch. Peter KO’d a decent fighter who is hampered by the chin of a nagging housewife and the world went crazy.
Time for perspective.
Peter went onto fight Wlad ‘Iron-Jaw’ Klitschko in an IBF and WBO title eliminator and we all know that he blew his big chance to really prove himself as a puncher in this fight. Wlad is being hyped, by the BS machine that is Manny Steward, as the heavyweight saviour, in reality he is a big guy with a decent one-two who is learning how to grab on for dear life when his chin is threatened. Wlad is a good guy but if one was to tickle his chin with a feather duster he would be flat out for a ten count, a ten minute count at that. When he gets up he would blame everything from Mafia doping to the man on the grassy knoll instead of his own paper chin and less than iron resolve.
All this can be said honestly about Wlad yet still Peter failed to dent him, sure Peter put Wlad down with a few, less than stellar, shots but Wlad got right up and easily avoided the wild swings of Peter. Wlad looked to have that familiar sinking feeling on the third knock-down especially and a baby wielding a foam toy probably could have finished him yet Peter did not and, we must naturally assume, lacks the wherewithal to be a truly great finisher, or even a clinical one.
I am not being hard on Peter; I am merely trying to bring about some clarity. If you still fail to see the overall picture think on this – the ongoing heavyweight joke at the moment is the career of Audley Harrison yet in his last fight Sam beat Julius Long in a single round, impressive? Only if one forgets that Long was also KO’d by the, supposedly light-hitting, Audley at the infancy mark of A-Force’s career. Audley was three fights in and a novice when he stopped Long in two rounds. I say Long was another lamb sacrificed at the altar of Peter’s punching propaganda.
It seems to me that the record of Sam is an exercise in building him up as a one-punch, snappy hitter when that is not the case. He did for Williams with a sweeping shot that was more clubbing than crisp and his swings against Wlad were embarrassing at times. The next David Tua? No.
So what does this say for the James Toney fight? Well Toney is creaking a little with age but can we really foresee Peter getting him out with a single bomb? I cannot. Can we see Peter landing the five or six consecutive shots needed to get Toney out of there? I cannot. Peter could pound on a fat, lazy Toney all night long and get a point’s win yet for me Peter is not a high-octave guy who can do this type of thing.
Sam will probably go for a stoppage in this fight and Toney is a paradigm of defence so I do not see the stoppage coming. Toney could lure Peter into the ropes and when Toney is recumbent there he generally has the better of a fight. James also has enough dunnage around his ribs and kidneys to protect him from being stopped with body shots. Toney puts himself at risk by contorting himself through some tortuous bodily turns yet it is to his advantage and discomfits his opponents.
In fact with is clubbing swings and propensity to load-up the heavily muscled Sam might just KO himself late into the fight by using up his steam.
To beat Toney you need sharp, quick punches and the ability to step to James’ left and pop the shots home. I cannot see Sam doing anything other than standing before Toney and moving ponderously onto Toney’s right hand and left hook. Sam might whale away on the sides of Toney but will this be enough to KO James? It might make him ache the next day but those aches will subside when he feels the pride of his biggest heavyweight win kick in.
Furthermore Peter punches in a wide arc a lot of the time and telegraphs his shots, in order to avoid them you cannot lean back with your chin-up and your hands down, this will play into Peter’s fists. To negate the punching of Peter you have to lean forward when he punches or dip to the side, in doing this you will come inside the arc of the shot and lessen the eventual impact, if it in fact impacts at all. Toney can do this easily and to me this suggests a fairly comfortable night’s work for James. He should, and could, punch holes in Peter as Samuel is lining up his shots, if he comes in fit Toney will be especially good in this fight. Peter is heavily muscled and surely will not be able to produce a high work rate throughout the fight.
In short there are many things Toney can do, there are also many areas where Peter lacks and the biggest risk on Saturday is that age and slothfulness beat Toney, not the limited Sam Peter who in terms of variety and skill should be named Samey Peter.
I go for Toney to decision a tiring Peter and punish him down the stretch. Jirov tried to club Toney into defeat and look what happened to him.
