Rahman vs. Toney from the women’s point of view

I prefer being ringside for a fight…the sound of the crowd, witnessing the excitement in the ring firsthand. The mist of blood, sweat and water that flies through the air and wets your clean notebook paper. Never have I missed it more than during the James Toney/Hasim Rahman heavyweight battle. Listening to the commentary between Larry Merchant and Emanuel Steward was incentive enough for me to hitchhike from coast to coast. In the rain even. Just so I would be out of earshot of their verbal meanderings. Hasim Rahman is no Rocky Marciano, never will be. And James Toney is never going to be on a par with Richard Simmons. Those facts we accept and know to be true. Bear with me as I examine a few points on this fight from a woman’s point of view.

So can we dismiss Steward’s comments about Toney’s hand size compared to Rahman’s? Being female, I am well aware that hand size being important and relevant to anything else of size is a myth. And big feet don’t mean a damn thing either. After that’s settled, let’s decide for SURE if Toney is a relaxed fighter, used to working so hard in the gym that as the fight wears on he actually improves OR is so out of condition he can barely make it through the round and that “this pace is certainly one Toney won’t want to keep up.”

We’ve got to choose here, fight fans. It’s obvious our crack commentary team is having a difficult time with this! Then there’s the rope issue – is James Toney laying on the ropes because he is a master at luring his opponent in, or is it because are his legs and knees shot? OR better yet, is his “Against The Ropes” routine something he learned from his early-day manager Jackie Kallen? Definite points to ponder. And I can surely recognize the fact that Hasim Rahman was the busier fighter – the lumps on the back of James Toney’s head are pure testament to that. Rahman also displayed a few holding patterns and elbowing tactics that many veteran shoppers employ when deep in the retail trenches battling for bargains. And it is tiring, but I can keep it up much longer than 12 rounds. Give me Bob Arum’s credit card and I can assure you I’ll emerge the victor.

Safe in his ringside seat, the retired and elegantly attired Lennox Lewis smugly observed the havoc he created by exiting the heavyweight ranks. Before him Toney and Rahman tried in vain for over half an hour to restore order in the heavyweight division. But it was not to be. Not on March 18 anyway. By the time the judges decision had been handed down, I nearly had whiplash from the back and forth between Steward and Merchant, and the back and forth between James Toney and Hasim Rahman, in a fight where each man suffered defeat in separate ways. Toney was somewhat beaten by his Lou’s Tobacco habit and enjoying good beef at Flemming’s Steak House, the curse of good living accompanying him into the ring. But Rahman emerged the bigger loser in this draw. By simply not being able to dim the lights of this boisterous, well fed and crafty James Toney, it makes one wonder: if he can’t deal with less than perfectly conditioned James Toney, is he heavyweight champion material after all? I’ll take a rain check and come back for the Lights Out Sale – when James Toney has slimmed down to at least his Ruiz victory weight, elbow my way into a good seat and let the games begin.