Marks of Desperation: The marriage between UFC and James Toney
Published by Zach Arnold on March 4th, 2010 in Current Events

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Last week, James Toney was bitching in an interview with F i g h t h y p e . c o m that he couldn’t get any boxing dates booked by his promoter, Dan Goossen. Toney also bitched about Dana White’s contractual offer to him of a five-fight deal that would limit Toney to MMA-only competition.

A week later, Toney signed with UFC and the non-boxing clause has allegedly been waived.

Welcome to the land of impulsive business decisions.

For UFC President Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta, the signing of James Toney is a luxury. If he flames out, then everyone predicted it would happen. If Toney succeeds, White and Fertitta will make a lot of money. When Toney spent months stalking Dana White at various UFC events to get a fight contract, White was nervous and respectful around Toney. After all, Toney is a legitimately crazy man who has made his bones unleashing violence on other human beings. After White and Toney sat down and talked at a January UFC PPV event in Las Vegas, both parties came away saying that they were unlikely to work with each other.

So what changed?

White was quoted by Yahoo Sports writer Kevin Iole as saying that he had been told that Strikeforce was negotiating with Toney for a fight against Herschel Walker. No matter how many times White buries Showtime and Strikeforce as minor-league MMA promoters, the natural reflexive motion for UFC is to try to stop whatever Strikeforce is attempting to do. Call it the Vince McMahon business principle of paranoia.

If Toney was indeed negotiating with Strikeforce, suddenly he found leverage to get UFC to allow him to box while booking him in MMA fights. The alleged contract between the two parties is a five-fight deal. Most people understand that if Toney does not succeed in MMA that he will get cut by Zuffa after a couple of fights. However, if Toney somehow manages to not look bad in the cage, then Zuffa will be able to book him relatively cheaply.

So why would Toney take a deal with UFC? Because his boxing options are limited. He wants to fight one of the Klitschko brothers and will unlikely be able to do so. The prospects of fight on ESPN’s Friday Fight Nights frankly is something that he feels is beneath him, especially if the opponent is someone that few fight fans know. Toney has been down this road before of fighting on free television and not getting much of a business bounce (see: fight against Rydell Booker several years ago on Best Damn Fight Show Period on Fox Sports Net). With Toney running out of options in boxing, the UFC contract was realistically his only major business option to take. Plus, if Toney doesn’t look washed up in the cage, it will give him some notoriety and spotlight to try to get a bigger booking done for a boxing match. That’s ultimately what Toney’s end-game is here.

There are fans who are defending the James Toney signing who also ridiculed Strikeforce for signing Herschel Walker to fight. By signing Toney to a contract, UFC has made Strikeforce’s signing of Herschel Walker look great in comparison. Walker is an athlete with legitimate credentials in multiple sports. He’s never failed a drug test. Like Randy Couture, Walker is a guy who inspires a lot of couch potatoes in America. When they see the shape Herschel is in at age 47, men look at that and are in absolute awe of the guy. When Walker fought jaybrone Greg Nagy in January, it was the talk of Twitter. Walker appeals to casual sports fans across the spectrum, especially fans who remember his days as a football player in Georgia or with the Cowboys & Vikings in the NFL. Walker has struggled with mental issues and yet his managed to stay in incredible shape at his age. In many respects, Herschel Walker is a very inspiring type of man who people naturally want to root for and see succeed. Win or lose, Walker will always have the respect of the American sports fan.

The same cannot be said for James Toney. What man in America is sitting there wishing that they could end up just like James Toney? Toney is a man who has failed two steroid tests. Toney is a man who pulled his pants down in a parking lot after winning a fight. He’s legitimately crazy. Toney’s appeal in the fight community is that he’s a “colorful” character. That’s a nice way of saying that James Toney says a lot of stupid shit and does a lot of dumb things. Compared to Herschel Walker, no one would physically want to look as bloated as James Toney has these days. Toney’s appeal to fight fans, should he face a Chuck Liddell or Kimbo Slice, is that he’s a gimmick. He’s a boxer who talks a lot of smack, just with maybe a tenth of the crossover appeal that Walker has. Unlike Walker who seriously trains every single day of his life, Toney’s reputation as far as conditoning goes is laughable. When the news broke that Juanito Ibarra, Quinton Jackson’s former business manager, would be training Toney for MMA, I laughed out loud. The only reason fans would be interested in Toney is not because of his past accomplishments or his credentials, but because hate him and want to see him get his ass kicked. That will work for a time or two, but that’s about it. That gimmick only works ultimately if you can back it up long-term with actual MMA-related talent.

If we are to believe that James Toney is a good business investment for UFC, then let’s quickly look at some of the match-ups that he can booked for. A fight against Randy Couture would all but seal Toney’s fate for being one-and-done. A fight against Chuck Liddell would be fascinating but for all the wrong reasons, given that both men have slowed down in terms of hand speed and Liddell would have to take Toney down to win. Would he want to? You never know. Liddell vs. Toney would draw some PPV buys, but enough to surpass what UFC draws right now with top stars like Brock Lesnar, BJ Penn, and Georges St. Pierre? Highly unlikely. A fight between Rampage Jackson and Toney would be explosive and be the perfect fight to book… if Rampage and UFC didn’t have so many disputes already. Politically speaking, Rampage would be a hard pill to swallow for Dana White. Plus, Jackson is already married to Rashad Evans in a program.

Which leads us to Kimbo Slice.

Few people really are that interested in seeing Kimbo Slice vs. Matt Mitrione. Plus, Mitrione has a real shot of winning that fight. The fight is scheduled for Montreal on May 8th. With James Toney signed, sealed, and delivered, how will UFC manage Kimbo Slice now? Will the fight get canceled or will Toney take the booking on May 8th to replace Mitrione? James Toney and Kimbo Slice are on a collision course and it’s an explosive fight on paper. Toney could very easily knock out Kimbo and finish Kimbo’s career for good. At the same time, Kimbo needs one takedown and Toney would struggle mightily on the canvas as if he was a fish out of water. Kimbo vs. Toney is the biggest money match-up at this point and it would present a scenario where a Toney loss would not be as damaging as say losing to Couture.

For years, Dana White has prided himself on not booking freak-show match-ups. A lot of UFC fans truly believed him. Then came Kimbo Slice and somehow UFC was magically able to convince people that Kimbo would no longer be the street fighting porn star bodyguard gimmick and would instead become a humble, gracious MMA newbie. However, Dana White can’t control the marketing for James Toney. Toney is a loose cannon. No one is going to tell James Toney what to do and a lot of the sports media will rightly look at UFC like a circus if the promotion books a fight between Kimbo and Toney.

Toney is and always will be a short-term play for UFC, but UFC doesn’t need to pop short-term business right now. They have legitimate drawing cards with Frank Mir, BJ Penn, Georges St. Pierre, and Brock Lesnar. Plus, there’s a new class of fighters coming up with Frankie Edgar and Cain Velasquez. There’s no need to panic right now in the land of UFC. I think a lot of people will mistakenly look at UFC signing James Toney and equate it to panicking about the company’s future. That’s the wrong read to make here. The signing of James Toney was purely an impulsive move by UFC management. You should believe Dana White when he truly says that the company has not formulated a booking plan yet for Toney. As other promoters have found out when working with James Toney, you must always expect the unexpected.

Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.