By Charlie Knoxville
I was telling myself that I wouldn’t watch the UFC 118 freak show UFC vs. Boxing match between James Toney and Randy Couture, but I gave in anyway and watched the fight (I didn’t order it watched it at a Hooters with some friends).
Freddie Roach, James Toney’s former boxing trainer and current trainer to Manny Pacquiao, was right, UFC was just using James Toney to say “look UFC is better than boxing”, it was obvious because they even promoted it as a UFC vs. Boxing fight.
The fight was a complete mismatch and a joke, Randy Couture did what he had to do to win — took Toney down and submitted him early. James Toney has been washed up for years and the way Dana White and the UFC was hyping him up was misleading and wrong, it was misleading on purpose because the typical UFC fan doesn’t bother to think on their own and research what White says, they automatically take Dana White’s word for it.
The UFC President Dana White has a grasp or mind control over his UFC audience. I’ve never seen a bunch of guys believe another man’s every word the way these men do. If he told them to swim with sharks because only real men do that, they would actually do it without hesitation because they want to please him like he was their own father.
Washed up boxer James Toney was more than willing to step into the UFC cage because he could no longer get fights in boxing, not because he was feared, but because he was over the hill and he got a good payday with the UFC for his loss to Randy Couture.
Dana White knew that James Toney was the perfect boxer to put in the cage to prove his point that UFC is better than boxing. Toney isn’t known as a devastating puncher at heavyweight, he is flat-footed, overweight, washed up, and talks a lot of trash to help build up fights.
Dana White is a master at selling a fight. I couldn’t believe Dana White said James Toney came into this fight in the best shape he has ever seen him, Toney was actually at the heaviest weight he has ever been (237-pounds) and didn’t even have a real MMA team behind him.
After the fight Dana White tried to say he loves boxing and all this other typical stuff about it being two different sports, but if he truly loved the sport why does he keep bad mouthing it and allowing a pathetic mismatch between a 47-year-old MMA legend in Randy Couture vs. a 42-year old, damaged, out of shape, slow, overweight boxer in James Toney?
Boxer Kermit Cintron was willing to accept a contract to fight in the UFC, but Dana White declined saying Cintron doesn’t have the name value of a Floyd Mayweather Jr. or maybe he found out that Kermit Cintron was a devastating puncher with a wrestling background and was willing to learn submissions, unlike James Toney, who is nonathletic, has no grappling knowledge and doesn’t take training serious.
White has had several UFC fighters show interest in crossing over to boxing and trying a spectacle fight of their own, but White would never allow it, he wouldn’t allow Anderson Silva to make millions of dollars fighting Roy Jones Jr., Don King was willing to make it happen in boxing and that event would have been huge.
If he really wants to prove that Boxing and MMA are two different sports, than, Put UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar in the boxing ring with boxing heavyweight champ Vitali Klitschko to show what will happen. Just to be fair. But Dana White will never do that, he is enjoying the image of UFC being the ultimate bad ass sport and putting his top fighter to any humiliation in another sport would not benefit him.
Be fair, if you wanna let an old washed-up boxer with no MMA experience fight in your sport, let one of your washed-up tough guys go into the boxing world and fight a 12-round championship fight against one of boxing’s best. Don’t say, “but James Toney chased me around asking for a fight,” James Toney actually chased you around because you were bad mouthing boxing and he was the only one willing to step into the cage and defend his sports honor.
At the end of the day, with Dana White, he is just like boxing promoters Don King and Bob Arum, it’s all about the money, but the difference is the more the UFC grows the more Dana White’s pockets gets fatter while the UFC fighters will remain underpaid.
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I am an avid fan of boxing and video games. My first fight of memory was watching Prince Naseem Hamed destroy Kevin Kelly. I enjoy all aspects of the sport. My favorite current boxer is Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao. My favorite boxing match is Diego Corrales vs. Jose Luis Castillo 1. I love watching boxing on Pay-Per-View more than being there live because you can really enjoy and watch the action from the best view.