Sherdog’s Top 10Sherdog’s Top 10: One and Dones
Number 3
James Toney’s MMA career lasted a little more than three
minutes. | Photo: German Villasenor/Sherdog.com
UFC 118 “Edgar vs. Penn 2”
Aug. 28, 2010 | Boston
A multi-division boxing champion, Toney is in all likelihood the most credentialed pugilist to ever compete in mixed martial arts. He fought everyone from Michael Nunn, Mike McCallum and Roy Jones to Evander Holyfield and Hasim Rahman, and he gave nearly as good as he got while establishing a reputation as one of the best defensive boxers of the modern era.
It came as something of a surprise, then, when the Ultimate Fighting Championship signed Toney to a multi-fight deal in 2010. Toney had been spotted in attendance at UFC 108 in January of that year, and the deal was officially announced in March. His first opponent was to be former heavyweight and light heavyweight champion Randy Couture at UFC 118.
Toney talked a great deal and did an effective job of selling the fight, but the actual event was anticlimactic. Couture required exactly 16 seconds to shoot his first takedown of the fight, a low single-leg that immediately toppled Toney. Twenty-two seconds in, Couture passed to the mount, where he spent the next three minutes before locking up an arm-triangle and tapping the former boxing champion.
However ridiculous the actual outcome of the matchup between Couture and Toney and regardless of whether Toney took it seriously or not, he made out like a bandit. His disclosed payout was $500,000, and there are rumors he also got a cut of the pay-per-view money. UFC 118 reportedly sold 570,000 pay-per-views, and it would be hard to believe that none of that interest was driven by Toney. Still, one does not hear many cries for him to be brought back for another shot.
Number 2 » He needed nine seconds and one thunderous right hand to put a giant to sleep. Despite the former UFC champion’s horrendous physical condition and seeming apathy, it was still an incredible upset.
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