JAMES TONEY INSIGHT (Book excerpt)

THE FOLLOWING IS A SMALL UNEDITED EXCERPT FROM THE CHAPTER IN MY BOOK THAT DEALS WITH JAMES TONEY... I AM SURE YOU GUYS WILL LIKE IT... The funny thing about going to train with James Toney was that all I had ever heard about him was how mean he was, how arrogant and hard to deal with he was. I had really not expected to go there and even see James very much other than in the gym. I didn't imagine us hanging out at all and certainly didn't picture us becoming very friendly with each other. However, on the first day there, Jackie brought me by James' house in Ann Arbor where I first encountered him sitting on his couch playing video games with a couple people. We got introduced at that time and that was about it. Eventually, though, we got to talking and he asked if myself and the other guy brought in to spar, a super middle from Pennsylvania named Andy Sarkozy, wanted to see the sights of Ann Arbor. We did and that night James came by, picked us up, and took us on a tour of the town. Showed us his old High School, where people hang out, landmarks etc. I was thinking to myself the whole time that "this is not the guy I expected." Andy and I had a hotel room about one mile from James' house and every day his two friends would pick us up and take us to and from Jackie Kallen's "Galaxy Boxing Gym." Jimmy Griggs and Big Lou. I nicknamed Big Lou "The Biz" because he reminded me of the Rapper Biz Markie. He and Jimmy nicknamed me "Vanilla Rice" and "Salami" (after the white kid on that old TV show "The White Shadow"). The only time James showed any indication of being the guy I had wrongly assumed he was when I first arrived in Michigan was when we would spar. James is the only guy I ever sparred who never, ever touches gloves before, during or after a round. He also talks trash constantly during and between rounds and it is usually some pretty hard-core, graphic stuff. It was the kind of thing where, if people were in the gym observing the sparring sessions, they would probably assume that James hated you. It had the feeling of a real fight. And I liked it. The most exciting time I had sparring with James was on July 15, 1993 at the Galaxy Gym when, with about thirty seconds left in both the third round and then again in the sixth and final round, we simultaneously picked up the pace. Sometimes fighters have something between them, something where they both kind of know without words being spoken, and at that moment I could feel the intensity of the sparring pick up. I remember we started landing pretty good shots and each of us would retaliate after each solid shot a little quicker than usual. The pace picked up gradually at first and then it escalated into all out, back and forth war. In reality it was probably only about twenty seconds worth in each round but in times like that time seems to stretch out and I was thinking it was a lot longer. Twenty seconds is a LONG time when you are trading hard, nonstop punches with a big name champion. James picked it up and his punches began to get very crisp and accurate. I was full of energy, though, and everything he threw I threw it right back. I was practically smiling as this was happening because it was like being in a ROCKY movie! Actually, I can specifically remember thinking of the 1985 Hagler-Hearns fight while we were in there throwing punches at each other. I remember just planting my feet and throwing right hands and left hooks as hard as I could at James' head. No body shots. No jabs. Nothing but power shots to the head. In my mind I was thinking of the Hagler-Hearns fight. All the way to the bell. And as soon as the sparring was over it was like someone slammed on the brakes and we both stopped after finishing up our final shots a second or two after the bell. We looked at each other for a quick moment and then headed back to our respective corners. We didn't touch gloves and we didn't say anything, either. On the way back to our hotel that night, though, James asked me "How did you feel today?" I told him I "felt good," etc. and he said "Yeah, cuz' this is the best day you worked so far." That was the best day we both worked. That time period of 1993, the summer I spent in Ann Arbor and the Poconos in camp with James Toney, was one of the best times I have ever had in boxing. It was like summer camp, almost, with some boxing mixed in with it. Every day there was like a day at summer camp that would get interrupted with some gym work thrown into the mix. Andy, my roommate on the trip, and I forged a friendship that remains to this day (I attended his wedding last year and, in 1996, Andy was MY sparring partner when I fought Henry Maske for the IBF title). Every day in Ann Arbor before and after the gym we would hang out, go swimming in the outdoor pool, go eat. We even got the girl at the front desk, Chantelle, to let us use her car one day so we could go to the mall. (Her muffler fell off about half way to the mall and was left in the dust out there somewhere on the Michigan highway system). At night we would go with Jimmy and the Biz to JT's house and play video games or to the mall or to different spots in Ann Arbor that they liked to hang out at. Spending all this time there made me realize that James Toney is much different than most would perceive him to be. I thought that he would be a very unsociable type of guy that I would only see at the gym on days we sparred but, really, he has a side to him that most fans don't ever get to see. Don't get me wrong, in the boxing ring he is very serious. James, as I said, was the only guy I ever sparred with that refused to touch gloves before, during or after the sparring rounds and he LOVED to talk stuff during the sparring that was raw and personal. I got the impression it was a test of sorts to see how tough you were. Apparently he had been known to send sparring partners home on a moments notice that he felt were not able to take what he dished out and give back what they received. I recently have read stories about how he was verbally abusing sparring partners during training for the Holyfield and Jirov fights and I had to laugh out loud at those articles. I could picture James making these guys miss and exhorting them to work harder in front of a gym full of fighters, reporters, trainer and fans. "Come on you B****! You punk M***** F******. Work!" He talked a lot when I sparred him, too, but I liked it. I think that HE liked that I liked it a lot, too. If you showed fear of him he lost any and all respect for you and would get VERY nasty with the sparring partners. One day, every time I threw a right hand he would say "What?!? It's IMPOSSIBLE to hit me with right hands." So the first chance I got I let go with a quick lead right hand that landed flush on his mouth and I dropped my hands a little bit and said "How about that one?" I forget exactly what he said to me in reply but I know he liked what I said. In his own way, he liked it. In his way of thinking, I think he got bored sparring sometimes and me talking back to him and challenging him verbally gave him some type of excitement he didn't necessarily get every day. After I went a few rounds of sparring/trash talking one day, Andy got in there and did something similar. After the sparring was over, James was stalking around the gym and yelling at whoever would listen: "See? All you Detroit punks here and I had to get me two WHITE BOYS to come out here and give me some good work!! You all should be ashamed of yourselves!"