17.02.04 – After a remarkable year that saw him defeat both cruiserweight champion Vassiliy Jirov and heavyweight legend Evander Holyfield, three-division world champion James Toney has been named 2003 Fighter of the Year by both The Ring magazine and the Boxing Writers Association of America. Toney will be presented with his BWAA award at the organization’s 79th annual awards dinner in New York City on April.
The May 2004 issue of The Ring, honoring Toney, will be on newsstands March 1. “By winning The Ring magazine’s 2003 Fighter of the Year award, James Toney joins an honor roll of great fighters that goes all the way back to 1928 when Gene Tunney was the first recipient,’ said The Ring’s Editor-in-Chief Nigel Collins. “Moreover, Toney has the distinction of being the first fighter ever to win both Fighter of the Year and the magazine’s Comeback of the Year in the same year.”
“Lights Out,” whose stellar year placed him firmly among boxing’s best, pound for pound, will be celebrating his second career sweep of the prestigious “Fighter of the Year” awards, having first won honors from The Ring and the BWAA 12 years ago in 1991, when the then 23-year-old Toney was fresh off a 5-0 year capped off by his knockout of Michael Nunn to win the middleweight title.
Since then, Toney added super middleweight and cruiserweight crowns to his trophy case, the latter added when he won a stirring 12 round unanimous decision over previously unbeaten Vassiliy Jirov on April 26. Toney followed up the Jirov victory by jumping up to the heavyweight division and scoring a one-sided ninth round TKO over Evander Holyfield on October 4. Toney is currently recovering from a ruptured achilles tendon suffered while preparing for a February bout against Jameel McCline. He is in line to fight the winner of the April 10 WBO heavyweight championship bout between Wladmir Klitschko and Lamon Brewster sometime this Summer.