By Kent Appel: Coming up Saturday August 28, 2010 is an intriguing matchup between former middleweight, super-middleweight, and cruiserweight boxing champion James “Lights Out” Toney and Mixed Martial Artist Randy “The Natural” Couture, a former UFC heavyweight champion.
Has Toney, 41, finally bitten off more than he can chew by stepping into a sport that he doesn’t have the experience to compete in because of the differing means of attacks that can be used in this fight or is Couture, 47, going to get his lights turned out by a master striker the likes of which he has never faced in his successful Mixed Martial Arts career?
On the surface of it, it seems that neither man should, at their ages, even be in the ring but I think in both cases we are not dealing with run of the mill athletes who should be judged by the conventional wisdom that they now should be enjoying the fruits of their labor on the sidelines.
However, it only takes one fight for a fighter, from whatever genre he fights in, to suddenly age to the point that it is obvious this is the last fight he should partake in.
I have purposely avoided reading any articles or viewing or reading any interviews about this bout so that I can give my views on what is about to transpire without any kind of influence on my thought process with the exception of my having gone to a some Blogs and other on line comments sections to see what some of the fans are saying.
The fans seem to be divided along the lines of boxing verses MMA and there doesn’t seem to be much flexibility in either camp regarding who will win, Toney or Couture.
By and large the MMA fans seem to think that Couture will take Toney to the ground and pound him out or submit him while the boxing aficionados side with Toney knocking his opponent out.
But what seems to be missing, at least from the MMA fans, is the lack of understanding on what a master old school fighter like Toney possesses and I am not just talking about his skills as a boxer.
Some of the MMA fans think that Couture will be able to tap out Toney with some sort of arm bar, joint lock, or choke and while between the two fighters Couture has the better skills in these areas, I don’t believe the word tap out even pops into Toney’s mind because I believe that Toney, despite his appearance of being, in some people’s opinion, as a ‘fat old big mouth trash talker’ who won’t be able to back it up when push comes to shove, is the fact that the old school warrior in Toney will not allow him to quit in the ring no matter what as despite Toney’s prefight demeanor, which is James Toney just being James Toney, he is all business in the ring.
So for Couture to win he will have to punch or choke Toney unconscious or break a limb but even with a broken arm or leg Toney would likely still fight on. So my point is that the referee will have to stop the fight before Toney admits defeat.
This is something the MMA crowd doesn’t quite get because tapping out seems to be an acceptable part of the sport. There is even a brand name called “Tap Out” which I have seen on T shirts.
And this is an intangible aspect that just might be the difference in this fight and while I am not saying Randy Couture doesn’t have heart, I think he does as I have seen several of his fights, is he one of those rare warriors who never says die?
So who do I think is going to win? I am going to go out on limb on this one a little bit and predict that Toney will be able to move and give Couture enough angles to stay on his feet which will enable him to land some hard combinations and knock Couture out.
However, the MMA fans have a good point about Couture having the skills to be able to defeat Toney on the ground. Either way it is an interesting match that stands to benefit both boxing and MMA.