Boxing News
Best Damn Heavyweight Period? Toney Takes Booker
Round by Round Coverage of the Main-Event on Fox Sports Net
by
Phillip Diaz
9/23 - Former three division world champ
James "Lights Out" Toney, 68-4-2, made his long awaited comeback to the ring Thursday night at the Pechanga Indian Reservation in Temecula, CA. His opponent was undefeated, yet highly untested
Rydell Booker, 22-1, who was making a move from cruiserweight to heavyweight.
The crowd featured a "who's who" of both the boxing and sports world featuring baseball's all-time hits leader Pete Rose, former champ Tommy "The Hit Man" Hearns, former champ Gabriel Ruelas, reigning 126-pound champ Manny Pacquiao, WBO heavyweight champ Lamon Brewster, IBF heavyweight champ Chris Byrd and rising prospect Brian Villoria just to name a few in attendance to witness the return of "Lights Out" Toney.
Toney, 227-lbs, entered the ring in surprisingly good shape considering that he hadn't fought since October 4th of last year when he pulverized Evander Holyfield on way to a TKO victory becoming only the second man to stop the fading warrior. Booker, 220-lbs, on the other hand looked soft as usual, although he was in rather decent shape for compared to previous fights.
Round one started off rather slow, Booker seemed to be giving Toney some fits with his jab, keeping him at bay for a good part of the round. Toney as usual seemed to be studying Booker, looking for openings and towards the end of the round he seemed to have Booker figured out as he started to press the action a little more as he worked his way inside.
Looking objectively, this was a fairly even round that I scored for Booker, although one can argue that Toney's late pressure gave him that round.
The second round was different as Toney came out a little more intense, but Booker [interview] was still giving Toney fits with his jab for the first half of the round. Towards the middle, Toney working behind a pretty decent jab of his own, caught Booker with a beautiful uppercut that left Booker's nose bleeding. Booker seemed stunned, but managed to survive the round. Nevertheless, it was a big round for Toney.
Rounds three through seven were more of the same, with Booker trying to work behind his jab with less success than he had in the first. Toney on the other hand was 'vintage Toney', slipping punches, countering, landing one uppercut after another, working the body and would occasionally give Booker a smile, adding in a wink and of course talking as usual to both his opponent and the crowd. There were times that the visibly out matched, yet game Booker seemed to be looking to his corner for either directions or a way out.
In the 8th round it was more of the same for the most part as Toney, who was coming off an 11-month hiatus, seemed to be turning this into more of a sparring session than an actual fight. After taking a vicious body shot followed by a couple of more blows Booker decides to take a knee. Booker to my surprise actually survives the round, Booker if anything is at least tough. In the 9th round Toney looks pretty fresh for coming off of a long layoff, bouncing around, working the body.
Toney seemed to be trying to set Booker up with a body shot, another big round for Toney. In the 10th round Toney hit Booker with a hellacious body shot at the same time the two fighters accidentally clashed heads, Booker grimaced in pain and pointed at his head, there was no blood and assault continued on.
In the 11th round Booker came out again trying to establish his jab, it was about the only thing he had any success with. Toney in turn started to use is jab a more, but in my opinion, Booker's jab was giving Toney many problems than his own on Booker.
Towards the end of the 11th, Toney starts to take over again and even starts paying to the crowd and they loved every minute of it. The first half of the 12th round was surprisingly controlled by Booker's jab, Toney seemed to be a little gassed and content to coasting to a rather one sided decision.
The two bookend rounds are the only rounds I had for Booker. In all the other rounds, it was Toney's skill and ring savvy that controlled the action. All in all it was pretty good performance for Toney, although I must admit that Booker's jab was giving Toney more problems than I would have thought.
The decision was rather anti-climatic, with all three judges scoring the bout for Toney. Score were 120-107, 118-108, and 117-110, all for Toney. TalkingBoxing.com scored the bout 118-109 for Toney.
What's next for Toney? Well as far as I'm concerned, it's not what's next, but rather who's next. With the WBC #1 spot secured and a future title shot against the Ring champion Vitali Klitschko, chalk another one up for 'Lights Out'.
