By Dave Lahr: On Saturday night, boxing great James Toney (71-6-3, 43 KOs) will be fighting Matthew Greer (12-5, 11 KOs) in a 10-round bout at the Pechange Resort & Casino, in Temecula, California. Toney, 41, really needs a victory a here so that he can stay in title contention for a possible shot against WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko in 2009.
Toney’s opponent for Saturday night, the 32-year-old Greer, reportedly has good power, if nothing else. He’s beaten largely low level opponents and been beaten when he’s stepped up a couple of levels. Greer has lost his last two fights against Kevin Johnson and Brian Minto.
If Toney has anything left at all, he should win this fight without any problems. There are reports that Toney is taking this fight very serious and that he’s likely to come in at the 220 neighborhood. This would be excellent news for boxing fans because Toney hasn’t been near 220 very often in the past few years. However, even if Toney does come in at a good weight for him, he’s going to have to let his hands go a lot more than he did in his last fight against Fres Oquendo in December 2008.
Toney got outworked in that fight and had to really struggle to get a win by a 12-round split decision. The victory was controversial, however, because there were a large amount of boxing writers and fans who felt that Toney didn’t deserve the win because of the more punches landed by Oquendo.
The victory proved that Toney needs to be at the top of his game no matter which fighter he’s facing. Oquendo was thought to be well past his prime at the time that he fought Toney, yet James looked like he lost. Whether that was a case of poor conditioning for Toney or just his age coming into play, it’s not a good signal for Toney.
If he can’t get by a fighter like Oquendo, it might be time to hang up the gloves. The reality is that Toney has struggled in all of his last six fights dating back to March 2006 when Toney fought Hasim Rahman to a 12 round draw. From there, Toney was beaten twice by Samuel Peter in 12 round decision losses, taking a lot of punishment in both of the fights.
Toney struggled to beat journeyman Danny Batchelder in 2007, fought a three round no contest with Rahman in July 2008, and then the questionable 12 round split decision win over Oquendo in December 2008. This may be a signal that Toney might need to consider looking for another line of work outside of the boxing ring soon, because he can’t continue fight B level fighters indefinitely and barely scrape by.
Eventually, one of them is going to beat Toney. Who knows? It may happen this Saturday night with Greer. If Toney doesn’t throw enough punches, I can see Greer beating him. And that’s not because Greer is great, but a comment on how bad Toney has looked in the past few rights.
Toney is hoping that he can get this win and then move on to fight either Vitali Klitschko or Wladimir Klitschko. He may get his wish if he can get by Greer.