This week brought several big stories such as Fedor refusing to fight Overeem, Strikeforces stacked april card and quite possibly the strangest being 41 year old boxer James Toney signing with the UFC in a multi fight deal that has many raising eybrows. In past statements from Toney himself has stated he could be a UFC champion as a part time job. Now in past statements UFC president said he had little intrest in signing Toney to the UFC stating he didn't want to make it a freak show like Strikeforce and 47 year old Herschel Walker have supposedly done. That however isn't the point, the point im trying to make is that Toney despite having a worldclass boxing background will never be more than a PPV stunt.
Let's break Toney down real quick:
He's 41 years old
As far as we know he has little to no takedown defense or ground game
His last fight was in september(correct me if i'm wrong)
We don't know how crisp and technical his boxing still is
Now yes he's 41 thats pretty old to be getting into MMA and yes i know Walker did it at 47 and Randy Couture continues to fight against father time but each of them is a different case. Walker has been training in martial arts for almost two decades and Couture got into the sport and developed a MMA style after years of fights. I feel as though this age will catch up with him quickly especially if he engages in 3 round stand up wars.
The second issue is we have no idea what his ground game is like i seriously doubt he has a jiu jitsu game that would even remotely effective in the UFC where a decent BJJ background is dime a dozen. Anyone that fights him would be wise to quickly test his takedown defense and guard as opposed to standing with him and playing to his strength.
Now his last fight was a little while ago and with that comes ring rust especially when coming into a brand new sport such as MMA. Now not to say that his boxing isnt still good but with his age coming into play theres a very good chance that some of his skills have diminished. We've all seen it in boxers before look at Ali by the end of his career his skills were a shadow of there former self.
All in all i feel like Toney will soon become an afterthought in the UFC relegated to fighting either up and comers or a former big name on his way down. He'll be used a PPV buying tool and i believe any fan will see that after his first fight.
As for his first fight against Krystoff Soszynski i'm predicting the Polish Experiment to take Toney down early and submit him half way through the opening round. This will then lead to the mother of all freakshow fights Toney Vs Kimbo but i'll rant about that at another time.
