By Jason Kim: 40-year-old heavyweight James Toney (71-6-3, 43 KO’s) will be fighting on September 12th against Matthew Greer (12-5, 11 KO’s) in a 10-round bout at the Pechange Resort & Casino, in Temecula, California.
Toney has a lot riding on this fight, because if Toney loses to a fighter like Greer, a B-class fighter, it would suggest that Toney is at the end of the line with his long 20-year pro boxing career. Even if Toney does get the win, it’s hard to see Toney making any real impact in the heavyweight division at this point in his career.
However, according to news from Dan Rafael, Toney could get a title shot in 2010 if he beats Greer. That would mean that Toney would likely be facing either IBF/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko or his older brothers, World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko.
I wouldn’t want to see Toney fight either of those guys, because it will be a huge slaughter unless they feel sorry for Toney and jab him all night long rather than throw power shots. How Toney could get a title shot off a win over a fighter like Greer is beyond me.
Toney has lost two out of his last five fights and received a questionable 12 round split decision victory over Fres Oquendo in December. Toney was badly outworked by Oquendo in that fight and appeared to lose nine of the twelve rounds. Toney is reportedly training very hard trying to take off a lot of weight that he has piled on in recent years.
If Toney could get down to a reasonable weight like 216, Toney might look good enough in beating Greer for one of the Klitschko brothers to give him a shot in 2010. However, Toney is going to have to look a lot better than he has in a long time, because it’s been four years since Toney last put in an impressive performance in a 12-round decision win over Dominick Guinn in 2005.
Before that, Toney looked sensational beating John Ruiz, Rydell Booker and Evander Holyfield. Toney started having problems at heavyweight when he was matched against Samuel Peter in two fights, losing both of them and taking a lot of punishment in the process.
It’s unknown whether those fights finished Toney as a fighter or if the combination of age and increasing weight was a factor. Whatever the case, Toney has looked poor in his last four fights. At this point, I doubt that even conditioning will improve Toney’s performance by much.
His work rate has dropped badly in the past year and he isn’t busy enough or powerful enough to beat better heavyweights. If Toney had to struggle against a heavyweight like Oquendo, who is getting up there in age himself at 36, what are Toney’s chances against a top 10 heavyweight? Probably not good. I expect Toney to be able to beat Greer without too many problems on September 12th.
After all, Greer has been beaten in his last two fights against Kevin Johnson and Brian Minto. But Toney is going to have to throw more punches than he did in his fight against Oquendo, because the way that Toney fought in that fight, a lot of heavyweights would have had a decent chance at beating him on that night. Toney looked really shot from what I saw of him, and he didn’t sound too good afterwards when giving a post-fight interview, slurring a lot of his words as he spoke.
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