Nowadays it seems like just about everyone and their mother are making the jump into the fast expanding world of MMA.  We’ve seen former professional wrestling sensation Brock Lesnar take the MMA world by storm.  A former Major League Baseball star in Jose Canseco made the jump into MMA just last year at DREAM 9 against Hong Man Choi in a losing effort.  Over the last year we’ve also seen several athletes with NFL experience making the jump, four of whom were prominently featured on the most recent season of The Ultimate Fighter.  But amongst all these “jumpers” there is one man who is still trying to make the jump across the pond to MMA and is making quite the ripple along the way.  That man is James Toney.

James “Lights Out” Toney is a professional boxer who holds a record of 72 wins (with 44 of them by way of knock out), 6 losses, 3 draws and 2 no contests.  Throughout Toney’s career he has held the IBF Middleweight, Super Middleweight and Cruiserweight championships amongst many of his other accolades.  He started out his boxing career with a plethora of potential and lived up to it for quite sometime.  Following his capturing of the IBF Cruiserweight title Toney would vacate the belt and move to Heavyweight.  From that point on his career wavered in and out of the excellence many boxing fans knew him for.  Coming up on the age of 42 many of his fans have come to wonder how much longer before “Lights Out” would hangs up his gloves for good.  It seems as if he wouldn’t hang up those gloves but instead aspire to trade them in for 6 oz. fingered gloves.

James Toney began to openly criticize MMA and the UFC saying it was “a minor league” and that he could “blow through any of them guys (UFC fighters)”.  James went as far as stating the UFC stood for “Ultimate F**king Chumps or Ultimate Fighting C**ksuckers”.  He’s also recently began to demean the ground aspect of MMA stating that it’s for “little fags” and he “doesn’t want a man on top of him humping him”.    But then came the real head scratcher, Toney’s newly peaked interest to compete in MMA.  He would call out Dana White leading up to UFC 108 demanding that he be given a contract and the chance to fight in the UFC.  Dana White would nonchalantly brush off all of Toney’s advances.  That is until Toney finally cornered him.  James Toney would track down Dana White and finally make his voice heard by the MMA world.  During the post-fight press conference James Toney would speak with the likes of Ariel Helwani of Fanhouse.com and Joe Ferraro of Sportsnet.com and make his presence felt amongst all mainstream MMA fans.

As a result of Toney tracking down Dana White at the press conference they would meet behind closed doors about an opportunity for James Toney to join the UFC Heavyweight roster.  The result of this was James Toney practically spitting in the face of Dana White, insulted by how much money he was offered for a fight.  At that point it became apparent what Toney wanted.  It wasn’t the thrill of the fight, it was the money.  As said by UFC commentator Joe Rogan on numerous occasions “Boxing is a dying sport”.

The big question to be poised is how much will it take for Toney to fight in the UFC and how much longer before he royally pisses off every MMA fan in the world?  As of right now he’s been stating the ball is in Dana’s court and he wants him to put his money where his mouth is.  Obviously to make the deal worthwhile on both sides the UFC would not only have to sign him to a multi-fight deal but lay down some serious cash.  James Toney comes in expecting to make more money then that of Brock Lesnar or GSP but does he deserve that kind of money when making his debut?  Of course not.  It would be seen as disrespectful to all those fighters who have spent several years working their way up the ladder.  One thing is for certain, someone needs to turn James Toney’s “lights out” before he’s given the chance to continue his verbal onslaught towards the MMA community.

Written by FightPros.com contributor Dylan Routledge