No Appeal from Toney

A recent interview with James Toney. No Appeal from Toney Heavyweight James Toney will not appeal the decision to annul his WBA title victory over John Ruiz following a positive drugs test. Toney became only the third former world middleweight champion in history to win a heavyweight belt at the same standard when he out-pointed Ruiz on April 30. But after failing a post-fight doping test, officials declared the bout a no contest. American Toney stressed that what he took was a legal medicine prescribed by a doctor to treat an injury and said if the fight had taken place in the summer as originally planned, the substance would have been out of his system. “It’s not a drug to make me all big and strong,” Toney told ESPN television in the United States. “My body looked terrible that night. “I don’t blame nobody. I don’t blame myself, I don’t blame the doctor, it was an honest mistake. I didn’t do anything to try and cheat anybody. “I’ve had 74 fights without it. Why would I take steroids to beat John Ruiz? That’s ridiculous.” Toney, who has received a 90-day suspension, has been given 30 days to challenge the test’s result, should he change his mind. The much-criticised Ruiz announced his retirement immediately after the fight but soon went back on that decision and has been reinstated as WBA champion following Toney’s positive test. Innocent but no appeal?..........

Comments (6)

PBDS

....anybody see this yet??? May 17, 2005 - James Toney has been officially stripped of his title and John Ruiz is once again the WBA heavyweight champion of the world. Toney captured the title from Ruiz on April 30 by winning a unanimous decision, but post-fight drug tests revealed that Toney had performance-enhancing drugs in his system. Toney and Ruiz received copies of a letter addressed from WBA attorney Robert Mack to Toney stating, "based on the actions of the New York State Athletic Commission and the test results on which the commission relied, the WBA must vacate your championship ranking and reinstate John Ruiz as the champion." Boxingtalk will also acknowledge Toney's positive test results by restoring Ruiz and Toney to their pre-fight positions in the Boxingtalk ratings. Ruiz will be returned to the #3 position and Toney to #4 so that Toney's rating does not benefit from the illegal drugs in his system. Ruiz's lawyer, Anthony Cardinale used the WBA announcement as an opportunity to call for the institution of increased testing to prevent repeat occurrences. "John and Stone and I are going to make it our campaign that testing must be done on a random basis.

21y ago

splittingatoms

man the heavy weight division is a damn joke right now.how can ruiz get his title back yet again.i was hoping that this was the last time we would see this bum dance around the ring with another guy ever.this is another sad day for boxing.they need to just scrap the hw division right now.all them bums in the HW division need to be living under some overpass in a cardboard box with all the other bums.

21y ago

tntkid

Toney is so full of shit.

21y ago

moochi

i can't see how he beat the living shit out of ruiz.........he shaked his bitch tits around and fought an amateur fight (pussy punches).... i am dissapointed that he was on steroids, because i would have loved to see Vitali knock him out...

21y ago

oldgringo

Well at least he beat the living shit out of Ruiz for everyone. That was nice.

21y ago

SweetScience6570

I wonder how he got those bitch tits? Toney has always been lazy and took the easy way out. I find it funny that he said, look how his body looked, HA...in boxing you don't want to be tight, he was retaining water and he was strong. For those that follow MMA know already, Josh Barnett who looks like a fat slob tested positive for steroids along side Tim Sylvia. Both men don't have the greatest physiques and if you looked at them you wouldn't think they were on roids. There are roids for fighting not just for appearance.

21y ago