James Toney is one of boxing’s most accomplished stars, and the same can be said for fellow great Floyd Mayweather.
Toney fought between 1988 and 2017 and held multiple world championships in three weight classes – middleweight, super middleweight and cruiserweight,
He also twice challenged of heavyweight honours – winning once but being stripped due to a failed doping test – and was known for his famous shoulder roll defence technique, one of the techniques also employed by Mayweather. Toney fought 92 times in all and though he lost on 10 occasions, he was never stopped in the ring.
Mayweather won all 50 of his bouts while picking up world titles in five weight classes from super featherweight to super welterweight. He had famous wins over the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Canelo Alvarez, Oscar De La Hoya and Juan Manuel Marquez before retiring in 2017, although he continues to take part in exhibition matches around the world.
Speaking on the WiseNuts channel, it was suggested to Toney that Mayweather was the greatest of all time but he didn’t hesitate to disagree.
“Not even close.”
He then said Mayweather would have stood no chance in Toney’s own heyday.
“Have him fight in my era. He didn’t fight the fighters that were around in the ’90s. He waited till they retired and got out the game. He didn’t fight Chavez. He wouldn’t fight Chavez. He wouldn’t beat Chavez. Hatton was s**t. Garbage. He beat ‘Canelo,’ I’ll give him that.”
Toney doesn’t speaks too highly of many fighters from the current crop and has previously laid into Canelo as well as Jake Paul and his fight with former heavyweight legend Mike Tyson.
