By Terence Dooley
While watching a daringly taken pirate copy of James Toney's fortuitous win over Danny Batchelder (it was close and Toney did little to deserve the win), I was struck by how far Toney has fallen in the past eighteen months.
Similarly striking was the poignancy of the decline, it made me recall the Ernest ‘Papa’ Hemingway story 'The Old Man and the Sea', a fable that can mean many things but for the boxing fan, and Hemingway was a boxing fan, it strikes as a metaphor of the badly faded fighter who is looking for 'one last shot'.
In the story an old down-on-his-luck fisherman is in the middle of a losing rut. His fish-catching streak is over by a long distance. The old man can still remember the skills that he once used to catch big fish but over the course of the years his body has let him down and luck (whatever that is) has deserted him.
Wilful to the last drop, the old man drags his body out everyday looking for the big fish that will make his reputation good once again.
He finds this fish in the story, but has to go so far out to sea to subdue and catch the fish that he spends days on the open-ocean battling not just the fish but his body’s own diminishing returns.
His dwindling strength pains him and when he does finally catch the fish and lashes it to his skiff sharks come and eat his prize before he hits shore leaving the man to lament that 'I went out too far'.
Toney is that old man, still knowing the skills but finding that his body, and lady luck, are letting him down. Like the old man Toney is stubbornly going out too far - in this case the dogfish infested waters of fringe contender heavyweight boxing - in search of that one big triumph.
Against Batchelder, Toney was painful to watch. Most of us sat down to watch the fight hoping that he would show something, a turn of the shoulder and right hand counter or a similar moment of brilliance. Instead he showed us nothing but the folly of his continuation along this stretch of water.
Batchelder was poor in the fight, Toney was abysmal. Toney nicked the decision on the cards yet it was Batchelder who deserved the fight overall.
A lucky loss would have shamed Toney into retirement; this win keeps him on a treadmill that is set too fast for his leaden feet.
Boxing- like the sea - is a harsh mistress or sexual benefactor, she does not accept mistakes easily and when she turns on you it is hard to turn her around. She can wine and dine you for years then drop you off at a backwater venue and put you in with a journeyman who you do not know but who knows you and who knows that beating you is the key to his fifteen minutes.
In short it is not a sport for Toney anymore. Long past his prime his defensive knack kept him out of trouble yet he is now no longer able for twisting and turning away from shots. His footwork - once precise and pedestrian at best - is now muddied and puts him in the danger zone time and again.
Like the old man on the boat struggling with a fish he is destined not to enjoy or profit from Toney is going through the motions of making his way back, muttering to himself that he still has it long after everyone else has stopped listening.
In the beginning of the story, the old man is snubbed by his fellow fishermen, but not due to spite. They simply cannot face reality by realizing what they will one-day become. Similarly boxing is turning away from Toney; the articles on him are drying up and fighters will look the other way for there but for the grace of god they go.
Once upon at time these criticisms would be heresy of the worst order. Even in his wilderness years fighting the likes of Washington and McGroom Toney was a compelling figure. Now he is a pitiful sight even for his biggest fans.
Toney should have stayed on at Cruiserweight post-Jirov, instead he opted to go to heavyweight and feast on the carcass of Evander Holyfield. Toney did this with such relish and spite one could envisage the skilful former middleweight King grabbing one, or a few, of the heavyweight crowns. However his heavyweight career is the big fish that he went too far out to capture. Now he is due to catch a beating.
Toney did briefly capture a portion of the crown when he fought John Ruiz only for the bout to be declared a no-contest when Toney's steroid-based medication turned out to be his Achilles heel.
After a lengthy ban Toney dominated Dominick Guinn. One fight later his luck would finally run out in a WBC title bout against Hasim Rahman. Toney came in overweight and still produced the quality work as well as the cleaner punches only for the judges to favour Rahman's graft over Toney's skill and turn in a draw verdict. It was very much like favouring a journalist hack over Hemingway himself.
A point of no return was reached that night. Toney’s reduced-fitness game crystallised into a strategy of punch picking accuracy yet the judges were blind to it.
Undaunted by his failure to adequately lampoon that big fish Toney went into a fight with Samuel Peter, another behemoth, once again Toney landed the more effective shots only for the judges to fail to see that one guy (Toney) was boxing whilst the other guy (Peter) was swinging.
A memorably close but clear point’s win – the perfect eulogy to his career – was denied Toney and in the rematch he was a shell of the fighter he had once been. After running on fumes for over a year the tank had packed-in, the irony being that Toney schooled Peter so well the first time out Peter made him pay in taking a wide points win in fight two.
By the second Peter fight, Toney was a shell of a shell, a fat parody of a once fine fighter. His balance was never great yet had it ever been so poor? All he had left was round after round of bravado.
One could not blame inactivity for the non-performance or for the nadir of Batchelder, Toney had run out of steam and Peter unscientifically steamrollered him.
Toney has had long gaps before and come back but this time, against Batchelder, he has nothing left in his gym-bag, he has nothing left to hold onto.
Like the old man who went too far out to sea Toney is dragging the carcass of a fish on his skiff only this carcass is not his long-dreamed of Heavyweight title but rather his body of work, his bequest to boxing.
As the internet statisticians who parade as boxing fans nibble bits off this legacy we can only watch with sadness.
Three IBF title belts, no Championships and a slew of worthless titles are easy to pick apart.
They can then say Nunn was weak, Johnson overrated, Iran old and Jirov a one-off. Yet beyond the Boxrec analysis of his career we can look at the body of work Toney drags with him the way the other fisherman admired the huge fish-skeleton the old man eventually dragged to shore – after the sharks had their fill - and those with eyes to see it can say this: ‘Boy, could he fight, and then some.’
It may be over for Toney - bar the beating an old fighter always gets - yet this writer, for one, will never forget James’ career and will always remember him as one of the most talented fighters in recent years. He was fun too.
Coda:
Anyone who checks out or has already read the short story ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ may find that the story makes them think of all the old fighters who try to get that one last big win or title. It is a perfect analogy of the fading fighter. The skills are there somewhere but the body no longer complies making it seem that the luck has finally run dry on you.
On a positive note the old man has the friendship of a young boy to fall back on, the boy gets the man old newspapers so they can read the baseball reports and it made this writer mournfully recall the teenage years when he would read about Toney’s big wins in the boxing magazines and could only look admiringly at the photos of Toney in his pomp.
As boys we read about his victories, as men we download his downfall. Will there be a requiem for James Toney? The boy in me says ‘Yes, please.’ The man in me says nothing.
