by James Slater – It’s being billed as “Boxing Vs. MMA,” and it takes place this Saturday night in Boston. Randy “The Natural” Couture against James “Lights Out” Toney. For months now, the crossover match-up has been getting a ton of attention, and whether fans of both sports see it as a genuine contest or a freak show, the pay-per-view numbers look like being pretty big.
Toney, one of the best trash-talkers in all of boxing, is sure he will win, saying he will score a KO, and that he will “kick Randy Couture’s ass.” Couture, no less of a legend in his own sport, if a less vocal one, has been more reserved, saying only that he respects boxing and Toney, and that he hopes his 41-year-old opponent has been doing his MMA training properly..
Most experts agree that Toney’s best chance of winning – his only chance – is to catch Couture on the chin while both guys are upright. If he gets taken down, the experts say, Toney is finished. However, Toney, as one would expect, disagrees strongly with such thinking. The man who turns 42 later this month (tomorrow to be exact, Couture is 47), has said he doesn’t care if he’s standing up or on the floor at the time of his KO-scoring blow, but that he will score one regardless.
And, fighting as the two men are with four-ounce gloves, it’s entirely possible someone will get knocked out. Still, Couture, a large betting favourite, is expected by his fans to win the fight by doing what he does best – be it ground and pound, an arm bar or a choke that serves to send Toney back to boxing with his first ever stoppage defeat. Toney, a genuine tough guy as well as a throwback to fighters from the golden era, cannot even contemplate the idea of another man taking him on and dominating him before finally stopping him; even a fighter who is so superior when it comes to experience – which of course Couture is when it comes to MMA.
Toney has even gone as far as to say how the reputation of the legends of boxing – Ray Robinson, Ezzard Charles and others – will be “on his back” on Saturday night. “I’m representing them,” Toney told Bloody Elbow. Will Toney “let down” his fistic heroes, or will he “make them proud?”
In terms of tactics, Toney hasn’t given much away at all. Other than promising a KO victory, “Lights Out” hasn’t gone into detail about just how he will win. Catching Couture early in a round, with his full body behind the shot, seems to be Toney’s only real shot at winning, as the experts have said again and again. But Has Couture got a number of ways in which he could win? “The Natural” sure thinks so.
“There are some serious holes in his game and it’s my job to point those out,” Couture told Ifight365. “If James comes with that traditional boxing posture, he can expect to get the hell kicked out of his lead leg. He can expect a right to come at his head followed by a swift double-leg, a swift clinch, then we’ll tie him up, dirty box, punch, elbow, knee, shoulder, anything I need to do to put him on the floor.
“There’s a whole load of other things that go on inside the cage. He better hope he can catch me.”
It really does seem as though the odds are stacked against Toney in a serious way. Toney, the boxer, apparently has just one way of getting the job done, while Couture, the MMA master, has all the methods he mentions when it comes to taking Toney to the floor. It sure looks like an uneven fight to me. And Toney is bound to be taken down to the floor at some point (barring an early, Ray Mercer-Tim Sylvia-style KO anyway), and when this happens will there be any way back into the fight for the boxing legend?
Hopefully, we won’t be subjected to a farce or an embarrassment on Saturday. This would do neither sport any good at all, and a premature ending would go no way at all towards answering the question: who wins in Boxing Vs. MMA?