James Toney Unimpressed by Oleksandr Usyk and Today’s Heavyweights

James “Lights Out” James Toney has never been known for soft opinions, and he is not impressed by the current heavyweight division either.

Speaking recently to Fight Hub TV, the former three-division world champion offered a blunt critique of a weight class that many fans still describe as deep and talent rich.

Toney’s sharpest criticism was aimed at the division’s leading figure. “Usyk’s good, but he’s average,” Toney said of Oleksandr Usyk. “He’s not great. None of these fighters are all time greats. None of these fighters will be. They’re not fighting nobody. They don’t wanna fight. The only way you become great is by fighting people who are great.” The message was familiar. For Toney, greatness begins and ends with opposition.

Toney is measuring today’s heavyweights against the way he was expected to fight. divide between eras.

Usyk’s success has been built on movement, control, and a safety first approach that limits damage and reduces risk. He wins rounds cleanly, avoids prolonged exchanges, and leaves fights with his record intact. The method works, but it does not align with how Toney believes elite fighters should operate.

Across a 92 fight career that stretched from middleweight to heavyweight, Toney repeatedly accepted physical disadvantages and still chose to engage. His heavyweight wins over Evander Holyfield and Samuel Peter came with him standing close, relying on defense and timing rather than distance. At cruiserweight, his bouts with Vassiliy Jirov and later Denis Lebedev followed the same pattern. Toney did not look to coast through rounds. He looked to control exchanges.

That history explains why modern heavyweight boxing leaves him cold. Today’s top fighters are larger, wealthier, and more carefully protected than those of Toney’s time, and the system often rewards caution over collision. Titles change hands, but careers rarely intersect when fighters are closest to their best.

Toney’s criticism may sound harsh, and it ignores the business realities of the modern sport, but it rests on a simple idea he never moved away from. Fighters are remembered less for how safely they won than for who they chose to fight, and by that measure, this heavyweight era still has work to do.