Toney defeats Greer, Doesn’t Look Ready for Klitschko

By Dave Lahr: Heavyweight James Toney (71-6, 44 KO’s) kept himself in the heavyweight picture with an impressive 2nd round knockout win over journeyman Matthew Greer (12-6, 11 KO’s) on Saturday night at the Pechange Resort & Casino, in Temecula, California. With Toney pounding away at Greer with body shots and short chopping punches to the head, the referee stepped in and stopped the bout in the 2nd round. The fight was mostly one-sided with Toney landing pile driving body shots again and again to the midsection of Greer.

In the 1st round, Toney dropped Greer with a right to the body and a short left to the head as he stood with his back to the ropes. Toney looked very good at that moment. However, there other parts in the bout where Toney showed his age, in particular when Greer was landing right hands in the 1st round.

Toney was backed to the corner at one point in the round and took a number of solid right hands from a fighter that in some ways looks a lot like a club fighter. To Toney’s credit, he quickly got off the ropes and moved the action back into the center of the ring where he continued to dominate the fight with hard body shots. However, it was worrisome to see Toney taking those fight hands from what appears to be a B level fighter.

If that had been World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko instead of Greer, I suspect that Toney wouldn’t have escaped the 1st round. Indeed, I think the fight would have ended right there with Toney in the corner doing a modern imitation of Joe Frazier in his first fight against George Foreman.

Toney was able to take Greer’s shots, though, but it didn’t look good that Toney was taking those right hands. After that one bit of action from Greer, Toney pretty much dominated the rest of the two round fight with body shots and short punches to the head.

After the bout, Toney mentioned wanting to fight the Klitschko brothers, whom he thinks are scared of fighting him. I don’t know about that, but Toney needs to lose a little more weight before he considers fighting one of the Klitschko brothers. At 217, Toney’s lowest weight since 2003, he still looked fat to me. I honestly couldn’t tell the difference between how he looked at 217 compared to him at 230.

Toney looks basically the same. If this is how Toney looks at 217, he needs to consider dropping down to 205, because there’s too much fat around his sides and coating his body. Toney looks like he could stand to take off another 20 pounds and then he’d be at the beginning stages of looking good. Right now, Toney still looks like a good year blimp to me.

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