THE RESURRECTION OF JAMES TONEY

March 13, 2006 - by Nat Gottlieb

James Toney's career has been one long act of defiance. He has beaten back obstacles too many to count, from bitterly harsh media critics to a career-long battle with the scale. There were serious injuries, high-stress personal problems and always, his own self-destructive behavior. Yet nothing has been able to put down a boxer who has never been knocked out in 76 fights, and has hit the canvas just a single time. Today, Toney faces a battle which all others pale in comparison. Every day, James Toney must go toe-to-toe with life's all-time pound-per-pounder: the unbeaten, Father "Career Killer" Time.

On March 18, Father Time will be sitting ringside at Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall when Toney attempts to go where no man has ever gone before. If he beats WBC champion Hasim Rahman, he will become the oldest boxer in history to ever win the heavyweight title for the first time, breaking Jersey Joe Walcott's 56-year-old reign. Walcott was 37 years and five and a half months old when he beat his nemesis, Ezzard Charles in 1951. Toney on March 18 will be 37 years old plus seven months.

It is mind-boggling that here is a boxer all but written off after losing to a fringe contender nine years ago, who has now resurrected himself though a sheer act of will. Not only is Toney riding a 15-fight winning streak, but is beating tougher opponents as he gets older. In the fight game, boxers are not like fine wine - after a certain point, they don't get better with age. Vintage James Toney doesn't appear anywhere near ready for the cork screw.

Toney is also on the verge of tying another of boxing's most elusive records. When Robert Fitsimmons won the heavyweight title in 1897, he became the first boxer who started his career as a middleweight to go on to win a title at the highest weight class. It was a record that stood for 106 years until Roy Jones Jr., the boxer who almost ruined Toney's career, became the second, beating John Ruiz for his heavyweight belt three years ago.

Now along comes Toney, who also began his career as a middleweight. If he beats Rahman, Toney will stand as tall as a 5-9 heavyweight can alongside all-time greats Jones and Fitzsimmons. Here's another right jab to Father Time: the Rahman fight comes an incredible 15 1/2 years since Toney won his first title. And this hook to Father T.'s liver: Toney was named "Fighter of the Year" by Ring Magazine in 1991 and then later in 2003, an unheard of 12-year span. Love him or hate him, James Toney is in the midst of one of the most remarkable resurrections in boxing history, and is poised to inject some much-needed pizzazz into the moribund heavyweight division. But, as with any resurrection, there is no rise from the ashes without a fall from grace first. Toney's descent was fittingly spectacular.

Toney burst on the fight scene in 1988, and was schooled to be a consummate fighter in the toughest, most unforgiving gym in history, Emanuel Steward's Kronk. The 20-year-old kid was brash, arrogant and fearless in a gym full of hardened boxers who were brash, arrogant and fearless. Toney had found the perfect home. The kid from Ann Arbor immediately made an impression on Steward, now a Hall of Fame trainer and HBO commentator. "From the minute he walked in, he was not afraid of anybody," Steward recalled. "He quickly became a favorite of the other fighters because he'd come in and announce out loud, 'I can whip all your asses.'" The biggest benefit Toney got at the Kronk was to perfect a masterful boxing style that today is matched by only a handful of fighters.

"I developed my style by watching tapes of old fighters," Toney said. "I watched Ezzard Charles and Jersey Joe Walcott constantly, and Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler. I learned a lot from these guys, and then part of my style just came naturally." Toney also went to school in Kronk's ring, where sparring matches often were tougher than sanctioned ones.

"He learned a lot just by fighting in the gym," Steward said. "He'd box six, seven rounds, didn't care who it was, bigger guy or smaller. I think James was born to box."

In his remarkably honest and self-critical biography on his web site, Toney's description of how he came to boxing is a delightful capsule of how he pursued his entire career:

"He moved to Detroit with his mother Sherrie when his father abandoned him at the age of three. Much of his youth was spent in a typical ghetto environment. In high school, he not only had the reputation of being a 'gun packing drug dealer,' but also a talented athlete. He excelled at both football and amateur boxing and became one of his high school's top football players. He was offered a university football scholarship to Michigan State and Western Michigan schools. He blew that opportunity at a University of Michigan training camp when he became involved in an altercation with Deion Sanders. According to Toney, during the tryout, he and Sanders got into a confrontation and exchanged words that escalated to the point where Toney hit Sanders. It was then that Toney realized that he was not a team player and decided to focus his attention on boxing."

Typically, the flamboyant, cigar-smoking Toney embellished a bit here. He admitted many years later he never had that run-in with Neon Deion, but as always with James Toney, it made for good copy.

From day one at the Kronk, Toney signaled he was a boxer cut from a different cloth. For his first manager he chose a drug-dealing gangster named Johnny "Ace" Smith, who also managed former Olympic champ Steve McCrory. Just after Toney had won his seventh fight without a loss, the "Ace" was gunned down in front of a Detroit restaurant. The murder was never solved. Toney needed a new manager. His selection was even more bizarre: Jackie Kallen, a former suburban mommy-turned publicist for Steward's gym. Improbable as it seemed at the time, Kallen would guide Toney through many of his biggest earlier triumphs, including a world title. Toney being Toney, he eventually dumped her - and as the story goes, may have threatened to harm her for things she apparently had said about him. Needless to say, he took credit for all his triumphs and said he just let Kallen along for the ride.

Closer to the truth is that as a woman training a male champion, Kallen eventually became a bigger celebrity than Toney, and he resented the attention she got. Kallen's story as a manager was later made into a movie, without Toney or his name appearing because he refused to give permission. Today, Kallen plays the "den mother" on NBC's "The Contender" reality series. Toney's dazzling early career immediately pegged him as a possible all-time great. Beginning in 1988, he put together a remarkable string of victories, and was an intimidating 44-0 and the IBF super middleweight champ when he encountered a man who would not be intimidated by either Toney's record, fierce demeanor, nor his surgically-precise style in the ring. The 25-year-old Roy Jones Jr. was 26-0 and every bit as full of himself as Toney. The date was Nov. 18, 1994, a day that would live in infamy for James Toney many years to come.

In hindsight, it is easy to say Toney was so self confident, he probably took Jones lightly. At one point, when Jones baited and mocked Toney by imitating one of his trademark shoulder moves, the champ tried to mock Jones back - only to get belted in the head and driven hard into the ring post. At that moment, the watching world suspected Mr. Invincible might be in for a tough night. Jones attacked relentlessly, and Toney - for perhaps the first and only time in his entire career - was defenseless. Jones won a unanimous decision by nine points on two judges cards, six on the other. It was a butt-kicking with 350,000 households watching on HBO pay-per-view.

Toney's then publicist, Debbie Caplan, later said her fighter had had the flu before the bout and was weakened by both it and a nightmarish battle with the scale. Six weeks prior to the fight, Toney weight 214 pounds. At weigh in, he was down to 167, a loss of 47 pounds in just six weeks! After the weigh in, Toney was hooked up to intravenous tubes in order to replace lost body fluids, and they remained in his body all night. Just before entering the ring the next day, Toney weighed himself in the locker room: 186 pounds, meaning he had gained 19 pounds in less than 24 hours. It will never be known if a healthy Toney could have beaten Jones that day, but what's certain is that the defeat was so demoralizing it sent him in a downward spin which finally hit rock bottom with a stunning loss to fringe contender Drake Thadzi three years later. At that point, the formerly unbeaten champ had lost four times in 14 fights.

If the loss to Jones sent Toney reeling, he was helped on the slide by personal problems, including a breakup with his wife, a bitter lawsuit with his once-beloved mother, and an ugly parting of ways with Kallen. His present promoter, Dan Goosen of Goosen-Tutor, says there was less noticeable, but equally as powerful factors. "The only problem James ever had was that when success came so quickly to him, he had a harder time keeping his eye on the ball," Goosen said. "He fought the best out there and won, and it became harder to keep his hunger and to be prepared," Goosen said. Toney admitted as much when accepting Ring's award for 2003 "Fighter of the Year."

"I'm a much better fighter now than I was then (1991 award), because number one, I'm more serious about my game. Back then, I wasn't. I would train, but it was half-assed. I would be in a hurry to go sit in a club or something like that. Now, I take better care of my body than I did before. Plus, I'm fighting more hungry."

The burning desire to win took a long time to kick in, however.

After the Thadzi loss, Toney beat journeyman Steve Little a month later, but his heart wasn't in it. Depressed, uninspired and bitter, James Toney quit boxing for nearly two years. During that time, Toney did his "thing," which means anything and everything to get his mind off boxing. His name frequently hit the tabloids. "When James quit, he was just completely disgusted with boxing," Goosen said. "He didn't want any part of it anymore."

But as Steward said, Toney was born to box. After 19 months, a restless and unfulfilled Toney returned to the ring. This time, he made the wisest choice in his boxing career, hiring Freddie Roach as trainer. Roach did not yet have his current "A"- list roster of fighters, but was still the same brilliant trainer who would go on to have 18 world champions, including today's boxing world sensation, Manny Pacquiao.

A former lightweight known as a fearless scrapper, Roach retired in 1986 with a 39-13 record, which included losing four of his last five bouts. The biggest payday he ever had was $13,000 for a loss to Hector Camacho. Broke and bitter, Roach tried to make a living briefly as a telemarketer, then turned to training - much to Toney's good fortune. The two first met at Mickey Rourke's Outlaw Gym, a wild, no-holds barred place that the actor opened on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood when he was trying his hand at professional boxing in the early '90s. Rourke, as well known for his brash style as Toney, decided he would like to spar with the former world champion. Disliking arrogant, boastful types who mirrored himself, Toney had met a match made in personal heaven, and sparred with Rourke for 18 months.

"He beat the crap out of me," Rourke later said in a film magazine interview. "He broke my cheekbone, with head gear on. I had five nose operations, broke my hand a few times, two or three concussions." Rourke was just a play toy for Toney, who was eager to launch his long shot comeback. On March 3, 1997, he won a TKO decision over inexperienced Terry Porter to start down the long road.

In succession, Toney would go on to beat his next seven opponents, who, while decent fighters, were not contenders. Always keeping his eye on Toney, Goosen saw something essential still missing. "I knew James many years ago when I was working for Bob (Arum) at Top Rank and we had a good relationship" Goosen said. "He kept asking me to sign him (during early comeback), but at the time I was not interested because of what looked to me like a lack of interest by James in his own career. That being said, the fact that he was not serious but was still winning was amazing."

Goosen was promoting for America Presents at the time, but when he joined with business tycoon Ron Tutor to form their own company in April of 2002, he started to think about taking on Toney, who happened to live just a block from the Goosen-Tutor office in Los Angeles. "We met in my office and I told him straight out I wanted a dedicated James Toney, not the guy I had seen for the last six or seven years. He argued and said, 'But I'm winning,' and I said, 'Yeh, but it is taking you 10 rounds to do what you should be doing in three or four."

Toney signed on, but his first fight in May of 2002 was uninspiring to Goosen's sharp eye. His fighter took 10 rounds before he scored a TKO over an undistinguished Michael Rush. Still, Goosen kept his faith, and was rewarded in Toney's next bout, against cruiserweight contender Jason Robinson in an IBF title eliminator three months later. Toney knocked out Robinson in the seventh round, but more importantly to Goosen was the manner in which he fought. "I could see then that the desire and dedication to be a champion had returned," Goosen said. The 34-year-old Toney was now at a critical crossroads, one from which if he lost was likely to end his act of resurrection. On April 26, 2003, he was to fight unbeaten (31-0) cruiserweight champ Vassiliy Jirov, a man six years younger with an air of invincibility.

Despite his success at heavyweight today, few at the time believed a former middleweight could be effective against a solid cruiserweight - including Max Kellerman .Before the fight, Kellerman predicted in an ESPN web column that Jirov would wear down Toney and win, words he would later eat publicly - and with good-humored relish.

Toney-Jirov was a war. Jirov threw more than 1,000 punches over the 12 rounds, constantly hammering his opponent's body. The defensive genius, however, was encouraging Jirov to keep pounding him, his plan being to let the younger man wear himself out. Toney's scheme worked. He won his third division title, a unanimous decision that wasn't close on the judges cards. Kellerman ate humble pie and in his annual "Maxie" awards gave three to Toney: "Fighter of the Year," "Comeback of the Year," and "Fight of the Year."

Six months later Toney took perhaps an even bigger step in his comeback, moving up to heavyweight against the legendary Evander Holyfield in Las Vegas. For Toney, just being in Las Vegas was heartening, for he had gone eight years and 25 fights since he had last fought under the Strip's glittering lights. Toney brutally took apart the once-unbeatable champion, with Holyfield's corner throwing in the towel in the 9th round. Toney would later be named Ring's Fighter of the year in 2003, but he still had his detractors. Holyfield at 40, they said nearly in chorus, was not the same fighter he had been in his hey day. While that was true, to others like Merchant, what impressed him about the victory was the stunning knock out.

Holyfield had only been stopped once before, by Riddick Bowe on an eighth round TKO in 1995. The only other time Holyfield had even seen canvas was when he got knocked down by Bert Cooper in the third round four years before the Bowe fight. After the loss to Bowe, Holyfield went 12 fights without going down, including bouts against Michael Moorer, Lennox Lewis twice, John Ruiz three times, Rahman and Chris Byrd. In a career encompassing 46 fights, at the time when Holyfield stepped in the ring with Toney, he had been knocked down by just two fighters!

Toney waltzed through his next heavyweight opponent, unbeaten Rydell Booker (22-0), but in the process suffered torn bicep and tricep muscles in his left arm, and had to undergo surgery. Afterwards, to help his recovery over the next seven months, Toney was prescribed a medication which would later proved to "hurt" more than help.

Healed, Toney was boffo box office now, and promoter Don King figured that was what he needed for his WBA champion, the uninspiring Ruiz. Toney comfortably beat Ruiz, but steroids were found in his system in a post-fight test. He was stripped of the title, suspended 90 days and fined $10,000. Toney had dropped a rung on his resurrection ladder, and had his reputation sullied.

Goosen was as stunned as Toney by the drug test results. "James thought, and I thought, it was just an anti-inflammatory medication," Goosen said. "Our doctor didn't mention it (steroids)."

Denials aside, circumstantial evidence lends some credence to their claims. The always flabby-looking Toney did not show up for the fight, as he has vowed, muscled up. He was noticeably flabby, and in his own words, "not a poster boy for steroids." More importantly, Merchant said, Toney's "whole boxing style is not about strength (which steroids enhance). It's about controlling the fight, never making mistakes and slowly wearing his opponent down."

To his credit, Toney never went into a funk or indulged in self pity. He worked hard for his next fight, winning a resounding unanimous decision over 29-year-old contender Dominick Guinn. Toney was then leapfrogged by the WBC over other four higher ranked fighters to become the No. 1 mandatory for Rahman, and a date with destiny.

What does the James Toney resurrection mean for the future of heavyweight boxing?

"The journey of Toney is a good story about a guy who always seems to dig holes for himself that he then has to climb out of," Merchant said. "And he does, with his talent and to some degree his mouth. After the Ruiz debacle, one has to wonder if he will sabotage himself this time, or will he live to fight another day."

The irony in all this, Merchant said, is "he has a chance to be bigger than ever on the scale - and in boxing - an interesting convergence."

Given Toney's larger than life persona and his crowd pleasing boxing skills, he could have a major impact on the heavyweight division. So keep the cork in the bottle fans, save the toasts, the party may not be over.