Toney adds to Heavyweight Divisions sad shape

[NAB]

Look, it's a good effort to win a belt at heavyweight, but to me, that fight was so boring it wasn't funny.
All I could think was... imagine either of those guys against Ali, Frazier, Larry Holmes etc...

[Bombardier]

Look, it's a good effort to win a belt at heavyweight, but to me, that fight was so boring it wasn't funny.
All I could think was... imagine either of those guys against Ali, Frazier, Larry Holmes etc...

You just listed three of the greatest heavies ever, so obviously these two guys aren't going to compare. Toney claims that he is a great fighter, not a great heavyweight, and that his talents will win him titles. I don't think he's ever tried to put himself beside the guys who were great pure heavyweights.

I disagree that the fight was boring. I think people have a idealistic view of what some of these great old heavyweight fights were like. You are rarely going to get Mab-EM when big guys go at it. Have a look at Ali-Frazier III again, which is considered by many to be the greatest heavyweight tilt ever. It's not like there's a ton of movement and even though the punchcount was high it wasn't like what you see in the slugfests in the lighter divisions.

People also think back to the Bowe-Holyfield fights, which were also a bit of an aberration. To me this fight held up pretty decently with a lot of the title fights from recent years. It wouldn't make a top 10 list, or even a top 25 list, of the best in modern times, but considering what people were expecting I was pleasantly surprised.

[NAB]

You just listed three of the greatest heavies ever, so obviously these two guys aren't going to compare. Toney claims that he is a great fighter, not a great heavyweight, and that his talents will win him titles. I don't think he's ever tried to put himself beside the guys who were great pure heavyweights.

I disagree that the fight was boring. I think people have a idealistic view of what some of these great old heavyweight fights were like. You are rarely going to get Mab-EM when big guys go at it. Have a look at Ali-Frazier III again, which is considered by many to be the greatest heavyweight tilt ever. It's not like there's a ton of movement and even though the punchcount was high it wasn't like what you see in the slugfests in the lighter divisions.

People also think back to the Bowe-Holyfield fights, which were also a bit of an aberration. To me this fight held up pretty decently with a lot of the title fights from recent years. It wouldn't make a top 10 list, or even a top 25 list, of the best in modern times, but considering what people were expecting I was pleasantly surprised.

Maybe I just hate Ruiz that much...

[Bombardier]

Maybe I just hate Ruiz that much...

Well, that's understandable . To me he exposed himself as a fraud that night, because when he opens up he can't take a punch. No wonder he hugs all the time.

[SnoopySmurf]

I loved the Ruiz/Toney fight. It's sweet science vs Jab and grab. Toney was outsized, outweighed and out muscled. But he showed what the art of boxing can do to beat bigger guys. His counter punching was right on target, even though he fought with just one arm most of the night. The way he angled his body to Ruiz, he was sideways, leaned away from Ruiz's punches, rolled with the punches when Ruiz did connect....to me, it was beautiful. Re-wind your tapes, watch how Toney does it. It all there. They'r every subtle and sometimes hard to catch but you'll see why Toney has never really been rocked by a punch in so many of his fights.