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by David P. Greisman - James Toney has won a championship in one division, world titles in two others. Roy Jones Jr. held titles at middleweight, super middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight.
They have nearly 130 wins between them. Both will be in the Hall of Fame five years after they retire — if they ever retire.
Both are 43. The greats are no longer. Their names are all they have left.
Even that doesn’t mean as much anymore.
Toney fought Saturday night in a bout seen only by those in an arena in Mississippi. There was no television broadcast. There was no independent pay-per-view. There was no online stream. There weren’t even any highlights available on the Internet more than 24 hours after Toney beat Bobby Gunn.
Jones, meanwhile, spent one evening last week in Moscow, walking to a boxing ring wearing a robe and gloves while one of his rap songs played. He wasn’t there to fight, however, but to lip synch along to what could charitably be called his greatest hits, a musical interlude before the main event.
The feature fight was headlined by Denis Lebedev, a cruiserweight who had knocked Jones out last May and who defeated Toney by decision in November.
It was too fitting that the first song Jones performed was “Y’all Must’ve Forgot.”
“And I won’t stop boxing ‘til I retire,” he says at one point. Then later: “Y’all must’ve forgot. This is what I do. We could go on and on.” [Click Here To Read More]
They have nearly 130 wins between them. Both will be in the Hall of Fame five years after they retire — if they ever retire.
Both are 43. The greats are no longer. Their names are all they have left.
Even that doesn’t mean as much anymore.
Toney fought Saturday night in a bout seen only by those in an arena in Mississippi. There was no television broadcast. There was no independent pay-per-view. There was no online stream. There weren’t even any highlights available on the Internet more than 24 hours after Toney beat Bobby Gunn.
Jones, meanwhile, spent one evening last week in Moscow, walking to a boxing ring wearing a robe and gloves while one of his rap songs played. He wasn’t there to fight, however, but to lip synch along to what could charitably be called his greatest hits, a musical interlude before the main event.
The feature fight was headlined by Denis Lebedev, a cruiserweight who had knocked Jones out last May and who defeated Toney by decision in November.
It was too fitting that the first song Jones performed was “Y’all Must’ve Forgot.”
“And I won’t stop boxing ‘til I retire,” he says at one point. Then later: “Y’all must’ve forgot. This is what I do. We could go on and on.” [Click Here To Read More]
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