What was expected to be a classic fight, a testing fight for both men, perhaps even the start of a trilogy, instead turned out to be a one-sided, almost shutout of a fight in favor of Roy Jones Junior. Facing trash-talking rival James Toney in their battle for super middleweight supremacy on this day in 1994, a peak (or perhaps peaking) Jones dominated Toney in a fight that shocked many of us.
The fight, dubbed “The Uncivil War,” took place at The MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Jones was 26-0(23), and the former middleweight champ was moving up to 168. Jones was 25 years of age. Toney was also unbeaten, at 44-0-2(29), and he was the reigning IBF champion. Toney was a year older and, like Jones, he was professing to be the greatest pound-for-pound fighter on the planet.
With the sport still coming to terms with the shock from that November 5, this of seeing heavyweight legend George Foreman make history by becoming the oldest ever heavyweight king, fans were shocked and surprised to see the easy manner, or the apparently easy manner, in which Jones handled Toney. Toney had struggled enormously to make weight, supposedly having had to drop down from a bloated 180 pounds. This of course was not Roy’s fault.
Jones, his hands so very fast, his ring IQ smart as a whip, his sheer sense of greatness serving him so well, proceeded to outbox, out-punch, and, hard as it was for his fans, outclass Toney. It was not a great fight, but it sure was a great performance from Jones. Scoring a flash knockdown in the third, Jones continued to pile up points, never once letting Toney get a foothold in the fight. It was in fact somewhat boring, so one-sided was it all.
Toney was never in any danger of being stopped, while Jones was never in any danger whatsoever. It was a super-fight on paper, but it turned out to be a super-show of the one-man variety. The sneer/smile Jones wore throughout let a fan know what the fighter, the boxer, knew – this was easy, and this was fun. Toney chugged his way to the final bell.
The scores were wide, although they could have been wider. 119-108 was the most accurate reflection, with scores of 118-109 and 117-110 also being handed in. Toney was angry at having lost, with him perhaps most angry at himself for the way he had allowed himself to pile on so much weight prior to this, the biggest fight of his career.
There never would be a return fight between the two, although Toney did ask for one for quite some time. As such, we will never know if a properly conditioned Toney would have been able to push Jones or even beat him. These two modern greats shared a ring one time, and when they did so, Jones took home all the glory. Jones, seemingly unbeatable, would not lose a fight until March of 1997 when he was disqualified in his first fight with Montell Griffin. Toney, quite ironically, would lose to Griffin himself in his very next fight.
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