Apparently MMA was a bit more complicated than James Toney thought.
After off-and-on trash talk from the multiple-time world champion boxer dating back eight years, James Toney finally got into the cage and tried his hand at mixed martial-arts. Of course, he was welcomed to the sport by one of its longest-lasting stars in the form of Randy Couture. The fact that Couture made quick work of Toney Saturday night in Boston was not as much of a surprise as the fact that Toney apparently didn’t take any of it seriously. With rumors going around through the summer that Toney had apparently gotten himself into shape for his fight with Couture, many were aghast (myself included) at Friday’s weigh-in that saw Toney come in bloated and not afraid to show some crack before weighing in much heavier than his last boxing appearance. The fact that Toney was taken down by a single-leg not representative of Couture’s great takedown ability made things all the more pitiful.
It was a freakshow fight, despite many trying to say it wasn’t. But when you put the most experienced (in UFC) and still active UFC fighter in the cage against a man making his MMA debut after nearly twenty years in boxing, what else is the fight going to be? Yeah, I bought the show partially to see Toney get what he deserved for all the talk, but I am a full-card kind of guy and was more intrigued to see if B.J. Penn would put up more of a fight in his second shot against Frankie Edgar (he wouldn’t) and did have interest in the lower card fights such as Florian/Maynard and Diaz/Davis. However, the night was all about Couture/Toney because freakshows and freakshow fights do sell anywhere; this fight proved that it’s not just something primarily in Japan as American audiences are just as capable of eating this crap up with a spoon. If you believed for one minute that Toney had any chance of winning past landing a booming punch with the fight standing, you’re an idiot. If you actually bought into the “UFC vs. Boxing” hype, you’re beyond an idiot.
This was not UFC vs. boxing, plain and simple. Maybe if Toney was fighting someone like Matt Mitrione, a man with only two MMA fights under his belt, than that whole line of thinking could be feasible. However, this was a boxer who had fought some of the best at every weight class he had participated in during a long career going against an MMA fighter who had faced top-class competition through a long career with the fight being under the MMA fighter’s rules. That alone eliminates the advertising slogan for the fight because for a fight like this to really be UFC versus boxing, it would have to be something close to no holds barred; Royce Gracie and Art Jimmerson’s fight at UFC 1 was a lot closer to MMA versus boxing than this ever could be. I’ve already written before that this MMA/boxing bullshit was born out of Floyd Mayweather and Chuck Liddell briefly—and I mean briefly—indicating that there was a rivalry between the sports back in ’07 when neither man ever had any intention of entering the other fighter’s world. Toney should be commended for even stepping into the cage, but should be condemned for the level of trash talk that he spewed out of his mouth while not appearing to come even adequately close to being prepared for the fight with nearly a year to prepare for it.
This time last year, it appeared as though B.J. Penn was the ageless master of the lightweight division and nothing was going to change that. Fast forward to Saturday night and it is clear that a new day has dawned in UFC’s lightweight division with Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard at the center of it. Both men achieved dominating wins over the two men—Penn and Kenny Florian—who battled for the lightweight title this just fifty-five weeks ago. Saturday both of those men looked like shells of the men who entered the cage that August night last year as they were beaten soundly by younger fighters in a fashion that you couldn’t help but be awed at.
It’s not as if Florian had been slipping since the beating Penn gave him last August as he had racked up two convincing wins and would’ve gotten another crack at the title if had beaten Maynard. However, “The Bully” lived up to his nickname bullying Florian around the cage and on the mat for three rounds in a fight that was never close.
Edgar used his rematch with Penn to silence any critics who had the balls to say he didn’t beat Penn in Abu Dhabi back in April. The man was more aggressive, quicker, busier, better on the ground, and flashier as he looked very B.J. Penn-like during various moments of this repeat performance against an aging legend. To emphasize what this win has done for my viewpoint of Frankie Edgar: I am a huge B.J. Penn fan and have been since my first days watching MMA on a regular basis just over five years ago, and I firmly believed going into Saturday night that it was a fluke, that Penn had gotten terrible advice in training or didn’t take Edgar seriously back in April, but there had to be some explanation for why the man who hadn’t been in a close fight at lightweight in years was dominated the way he was. Well, Saturday night I got my answer from “The Answer” as it was no fluke, there was no reasoning away the loss in April and the almost identical performances of both men Saturday proved that any attempt to downplay the fight in April is a sign of denial about both fighters.
Boston needed Couture/Toney for its UFC debut as Penn/Edgar wasn’t going to be up to snuff as far as drawing a crowd was concerned. Penn was the name, but he wasn’t the champ coming in and Edgar only became known by UFC fans as something more than just another really good lightweight fighter after he had won the title from Penn in a fight that most believed would be a routine defense for Penn. Because that fight turned out to be as dull and one-sided as it was, with the worst performance from Penn as a lightweight possibly ever, it wasn’t going to be an easy sell. However, Edgar and Maynard did everything to make me believe that their rematch in the main-event of a UFC show can sell. They have the necessary conflict as Maynard is still unbeaten and Edgar’s only career loss has come to Maynard. UFC could bill Edgar as putting the legend that is B.J. Penn to rest (true or not) while Maynard is the uncrowned champ due to his win over Frankie. I think that’s as far as the promotion for the rematch needs to go as it will be a title fight between the two new faces in the division, and more importantly the the two lightweights left unscathed over the past year.
What these two losses means for Penn has been the big question following the fight as he really can’t move up in weight at this stage in his career. Welterweight hasn’t treated Penn that great at any point in his career as his successes in the weight class came from a B.J. Penn that doesn’t exist anymore. A rematch with Gomi is the best solution for Penn’s immediate future as that would still be a dream fight to some and would be a good way to see which of the lightweight stars of yesteryear still have something left. Past that, nothing really is for certain, and you can never really count Penn out as many people had him almost done as a fighter after the GSP loss last January. Throughout 2009 the belief was that someone—KenFlo and then Diego Sanchez—would banish Penn from the top ranks of the lightweight division and even that isn’t official despite two poor showings in 2010.
