I was there. Randy ankle picked his ass and I believe made him tap twice.
Lol the entire fight was pretty much just a moment.
UFC was so wrong for doing that to James. Actually, I lost all respect for both Ariel and that fat fick Jay Glazer for how their bitch asses tried to patronize James in the build up. I guarantee if they ran into James under different circumstances they would fawn over him and say “oh man you’re such a legend. I’m a huge fan.”
The UFC took advantage of a handicapped person and I’m not joking. Toney was effectively retired at that time because no one would put him in the ring against anyone competitive. Please don’t try to even argue using google if you weren’t following boxing at that time. Even if James wasn’t severely damaged to the point he couldn’t even formulate a coherent sentence, how are you going to put a guy in his first fight against a multiple time world champion and perennial great? It’s a fucking disgrace. If you like this, you’d probably get a kick out of Power Sap digging up Muhammad Ali’s corpse and having Jake Paul punch them to a pulp.
Didnt know all that, thats a shame and not a surprising move by the UFC.
Obviously a setup to attempt to elevate the UFC and lessen boxing, which as had ppl doing that to it for a long time now.
Really sucks.
It was fun night in Boston. Frankie beat BJ in the rematch that night too. They also had a pretty epic UFC Fan Expo in the convention center, met a ton of that eras best. This is before the whole Reebok deal flushed out all the small MMA business owners.
Randy should have boxed him in all fairness, he would have lost but he was good at avoiding bad shots from normal sized guys (not kicks), I think he would have lasted longer than toney in MMA and that is the metric I would have used on each because it boiled down to survival for both. Granted toney definitely could have caught him in less than a min before 2005 but the 2010 toney was looking to get paid not made, randy curled his toes pretty quick.
If toney would have knocked randy out that night he likely would have fought again, who would that have been? rampage? Hendo? (Always down) Everyone knew what randy was going to do. Who would have been the best matchup for him but was still a big name?
I agree with alot of that, it reminded me of the bs move when they brought in Kimbo and attempted to make him a fighter. I saw people with his t shirts and heard he was a dangerous fighter. Lol, the dude knocked out street bums! It was a gimmick.
There’s room for spectacle fights but not in the major leagues, Kimbo was fun in EliteXc but should have never been more than a co main. Honestly he was suited for bellator in 2010 not the ufc. Also Kimbo vs Brett (the reach around) Rogers should have happened in EliteXc, brett wanted it bad.
Hated it just like I hate seeing MMA dudes get fucked up in boxing. Was always a big Toney fan.
I hate this fight, why didn’t they give him a banger, I know just protecting the ufc brand
For the context of the time it made sense. UFC was blowing up but a lot of the mainstream media still saw it as a fad and would be gone in 4-5 more years. James Toney represented an avatar of boxing as a whole. Randy showed what can happen when you face a mixed martial artist.
What did they do to James?
Just shows how dumb and not self-aware Toney was. The only question was how long into the first round would it happen.
Would have like to see Toney fight Ray Mercer during that era.
Ray knocked out Tim Silva.
IIRC - too lazy to look it up
I do remember Rogan saying, “Well we learned, what we learned at UFC1.”
Man I loved Toney as a boxer. He was great at trash talk if you could understand half of what he said.
I heard a rumour that Toney just turned up for teh paycheck and didn’t really train.
And those segments of him training mma was just for teh cameras?
That was a great weekend
LOL @ Yamasaki
“you know what, why don’t you tap out, huh?”
yeah i heard he was broke and this was a cheeky 150k or something