Couture destroys Toney -- and doesn't prove a thing

So Randy Couture steamrolled James "Lights Out" Toney at UFC 118 Saturday night, proving once and for all that an aging but proficient mixed martial artist is better at mixed martial arts than a boxer who is 18 years and 77 pounds past his prime.

And that's about all Couture's highly anticipated but hardly unexpected win proves.

Actually no.

It also proves that Toney, who hounded Dana White for the final three months of 2009 before finally receiving his shot in the UFC, probably should have started out in Strikeforce because they probably would have let him debut against a creampuff more suited to his (non-existent) MMA skills. I mean, Herschel Walker is 1-0 as an MMA fighter thanks to Strikeforce and Greg Nagy.

Either way, I'm hardly the only guy who figured Couture would take down and overwhelm the 42-year-old Toney without much time or effort. It doesn't take a visionary to foresee a wrestling expert and MMA veteran choking out a guy who has never grappled before.

The result was about as predictable as a showdown between Toney's willpower and the buffet table.

And it was about as significant as it was competitive.

Yes, Saturday night marked the first time we saw a big-name boxer take on a top-flight mixed martial artist in a near no-holds-barred fight, but the bout was far from a final referendum on which group of athletes is superior.

I doubt such a thing exists.

As I told friends on Twitter Saturday night, Toney facing Couture in the octagon is like the Pittsburgh Pirates meeting teem Pakistan on the cricket pitch.

Like Toney the Pirates have a glorious and well-documented past. Thirty-one years ago the Pirates claimed a World Series, giving the city of Pittsburgh six major pro titles (two World Series and four Super Bowls) in the decade of the seventies.

But like Toney they watch that glory fade a little every day, and while they still remain in the major leagues their performance, payroll and paid attendance slide steadily toward minor league levels.

Couture, meanwhile is like Pakistani cricket: not the same force as in the glory days (there's no replacing Inzimam Ul Haq), but they're still a world power, and way too strong for any minnow to challenge.

So expecting Toney to put in nine months of MMA training and give Couture anything resembling a tough fight is like asking Andrew McCutchen and crew to fly to Islamabad and go wicket-for-wicket with team Pakistan.

Wouldn't happen, and we know it because we realize that for all the similarities between baseball and cricket there's still a vast difference between the two.

Somehow we forget that when trying to compare boxing and MMA but as Couture demolished Toney Saturday night we all received an emphatic reminder.

If we really wanted to prove MMA fighters were superior to boxers in all aspects we'd have to arrange a rematch between Toney and Couture under the Queensberry Rules.

Of course, it's been discussed and of course, Couture is vowing never to enter a boxing ring with Toney.

After Saturday's fight he told reporters that if the two men ever boxed “James would probably knock me out in the first round.”

I don't know.

First round knockouts were never Toney's style (and yes, I feel comfortable discussing Toney's boxing career in the past tense). More likely he would pick Couture apart early and beat him down in the middle rounds. Either way, if Toney and Couture had met in a ring Saturday night Couture might still be on his back with the referee counting over him.

But they met in an octagon, which proves that Couture has learned a hard lesson about the fight game that still eludes Toney:

Never take a fight unless you know you can win it.

 

Follow the Star's Morgan Campbell on Twitter

Comments

[Robert S]

I know you're trying to be generous here, but it does prove something. (Something that Couture stepping into a boxing ring would have no bearing on.) These are not "separate" combat sports, and they are not "equal."

The relation of boxing to MMA is the relation of any other component combat sport is to MMA. Yet the operative word is "combat." These sports are meant to simulate a true fight, under safe conditions that eliminate variables. If Randy Couture met James Toney on a street with no referees, what would the outcome look like the vast, vast majority of the time? The outcome in the boxing ring, or that in the Octagon?

Boxing, as any other combat sport, correlates to a genuine fight. But so does wrestling, judo, jiu-jitsu, kickboxing. The difference is, from sheer money and tradition, and the lack of a more comprehensive combat sport, boxing has ruled the roost in the past century--and never truly earned it.

Now, if you want to argue that boxing deserves a place on the podium equal to MMA, I would have no qualms about it--so long as boxing took that same attitude toward all the other, less- and no-money combat sports with honorable traditions.

If not, calling boxing a "fight" and boxers "fighters" is as ludicrous as calling an arm wrestler a "wrestler."

This isn't "pick a fight you know you can win." It's "pick a real fight." And it once again proved as much as it did in 1993. Though unlike 1993, modern MMA as a whole proves that boxing is a necessary *component* of true fighting. The question is, will boxing take its place to keep a piece of the pie--or be so petulant about being knocked off the top stand that it forces a fight in sports appreciation it can't win?

[JetsStruggaling]

Good stuff Morgan, but yes, it would end in the 1st round without any doubt if the tables were turned. The fact Toney wasn't known as an early blowout guy in boxing has no bearing on how he'd do against any MMA fighter, who tend to back up in a straight line and rarely move their heads side to side compared to boxers. If he wanted to, even now, he'd KO any of them in short order.
Perfect punch against Nunn, the fact he still had enough in the tank to KO Prince Charles, decked Jirov when he was still iron-chinned, also very late.
Remember - Toney decked Holyfield, who even in his faded state doesn't touch the canvas (he hasn't been knocked down since and Toney was the 1st to do it believe since the 3rd Bowe fight).
Toney finished by boxing more natural 230-250 guys, that had to hamper his power numbers.

[kongqueror]

It does prove that when an MMA fighter and a boxer meet and they are allowed to use everything in their arsenal, the MMA fighter will always win becaese this becomes essentially an MMA fight. It is just the nature of their domains. A boxer is the best at boxing and will no doubt always win in a boxing match. When he steps into the arena to fight an MMA fight, there is nothing stopping the boxer from using all his skills. However, due to the nature of an MMA fighter, he has the tools to neutralize that one skill the boxer has. The boxer, being a boxer, cannot neutralize the MMA fighter. Once a boxer employs TD defense, kicks, and grappling – he is no longer a boxer but an MMA fighter. Boxing is a martial art and but one component of the MMA fighters arsenal.

Try playing a game of rock-paper-scissors with just scissors. You will always be beaten by a guy with a complete set of tools.

[Matthew]

I agree with @ Robert S. I think this fight proved that not only can boxers no longer say that MMartists are not fighters but it also shows that from here onn out the definition of fighter in sports should be MMA fighters. These guys are true fighters through and through whereas boxing is just one aspect of a true fight. i mean the LHW division in the UFC has the most talented fighters in the world bar none. Some of those guys are downright Ninjas and like Robert S argued, if anybody met in a fight in the real world it would look a lot more like MMA than boxing.

[johnnyk]

Of course all the advantage is to the MMA fighter.
It would be fairer if the MMA guy had to wear standard boxing gloves.

[Jim]

Robert S writes:

"The difference is, from sheer money and tradition, and the lack of a more comprehensive combat sport, boxing has ruled the roost in the past century--and never truly earned it. "

Good sir, you completely rewrite history when you say that.
Your extremely clinical thought process has one major problem - it ignores traditions and cultures and socio-economic conditions.

Boxing has "earned" it because the people have conferred it. Boxing is more linked than any other sport, let alone "combat" sport, to socio-economic conditions. While many have taken it up just coz they like the sport, more others still have taken it up because they're desperate, dirt poor, have to fight for survival, and it's inexpensive and simple.
MMA has no resonance and history in just about every Latin American country and the African countries that fight, let alone other spots in the world. A shoeshine boy in Bogota isn't wrestling or ju-jistu-ing for survival on the streets, he's fighting with his fists for it. (To your point about what a fight would look like on the street - depends on where you are. As they say in Philly, even the winos there know how to jab))

MMA is an artificial sport created from elements of others and it has no correlation with socio-economic conditions at this point in time. It's just primarily guys from fairly comfortable stations in life - compared to boxing - who want to fight. That's totally fine. So too were football and basketball artificially created from aspects of other sports and they've managed to become part of many cultures and be open and appealing to all types of participants including the poorest ones (in ways that obviously hockey, golf and tennis have a harder time doing).

MMA may one day have this resonance. But it absolutely galls me when people from a comfortable North American, Caucasian-dominated perch make sweeping generalizations of what's the "ideal" or "evolved" fighting approach based on their own preference, serving to erase or negate decades of tradition and culture around the world (I know it's hard to see it in MMA-mad Ontario, but boxing is still practised in WAY more countries around the globe)

[Ivan Montiel]

Exactly never take a fight unless you know you can win it very well said Morgan.

What was Toney thinking I don't know?

At least Couture knows better not to step into a boxing ring.

Great blog man!