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James Toney: UFC stands for Ultimate Fighting C***suckers
By Zach Arnold | January 4, 2010
I had just written an article, ironically, about Dana White’s past treatment of the media and some of the language he has used (including the language that got him in PR trouble with GLAAD).
James Toney, unsurprisingly, is opening his mouth loud and clear now that he crashed the UFC 108 post-fight press conference session and made his demands for a UFC booking clear.
PC: I know what it stands for, but I’m sure you have something clever.
JT: Ultimate Fucking Chumps or Ultimate Fighting C***suckers, whatever you want to call it. It is what it is and now I have put the ball in Dana’s court and if he doesn’t do it, everybody will know he’s scared.
It’s clear in the Fight Hype interview that Toney wants Kimbo and sees that as the biggest-possible money fight. He’s probably thinking that he can beat Kimbo the same way Ray Mercer beat Tim Sylvia.
As far as ground fighting? Toney’s not worried. He also says MMA would be a part-time gig for him.
JT: You’ll see. I know a lot of them thinking they would fuck me up and they gonna shoot in on me and all of that, but I ain’t going to the ground; that ain’t happening. I got one of the best mixed martial arts trainers in the world, which is my daddy. You know what I’m saying? He is one of the original death fighters. They fought to the death, like in them movies, but it’s a matter of time. I will be ready to go.
Topics: Boxing, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 43 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Ah, you stay classy now James!
Throw him in with Rolles Jr. He’ll get put to sleep and hopefully piss himself mid-octagon, removing the last remaining shred of dignity the overweight, punch-drunk bum has left.
…and yes, I realise that was delivered with about as much class as Toney’s comments 🙂
Oh my, “death fighters”? Was his father in FMW? Did I dream the past 15 years and wake up in 1995 still? I really hope this farce doesn’t happen. It’s great that he wants to play disrespectful to hype coming in and all, but you can do that without “ground fighting is gay” and “NHB fighters fight to the death~!” to set the sport back a decade.
I’m calling it now – Toney by TKO (Dim Mak)
@Mark LOL at the FMW reference. I think if they’re going to let him fight Kimbo, they should go all-out with an exploding cage, barbed wire, tarantula scorpion thumbtack match.
I wonder how many months he was working on those clever acronyms for UFC.
Hey, two can play at that game!
Since James Toney is bloated, overweight and has an affinity for performance-enhancing drugs, maybe he’s the ‘Ultimate Fat Cheater’.
Ziiiiiiing!
As a big ECW fan growing up, I decide to try out stuff like FMW…. It was almost too extreme and tough to watch. I had completely forgotten about it until seeing The Wrestler and some of those scenes brought back the memory.
James Toney is so over the top that it’s funny. I really hope the UFC doesn’t sign him.
Toney’s an idiot.
At least there is an art to Japanese death matches. The real sick stuff is from those backwood hick wrestlers in places like IWA-MS that get all cranked up on crystal meth and use weedwackers and 10 billion lighttubes on each other for $20 payoffs.
You basically imply that Dana should be nice to the online MMA media, because the UFC could possibly lose ground in the future and will need the online MMA media to rebound. That’s ignoring the possibility that the majority of the online MMA media already has it in for the UFC and are already trying to take down the UFC with constant negative articles and over-hyping the UFC’s competition to a ridiculous degree. I still think at least some of the negativity against the UFC from the online MMA media writers and journalists is unresolved butthurt angst over the death of high-level MMA in Japan.
The way a lot of the MMA hardcore fans and writers act, the UFC is a big pile of dogshit, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. They know all the fighters, and watch every event, but all that spews out of their mouths is hatred for the UFC. It’s incredible, impossible to ignore and very phony.
Dana’s biggest problem is his shtick is played out. I had that Dana tirade from last week tuned out two seconds after it started. He’s obviously got to do something to counter the UFC hate from the online MMA media, but another angry rant isn’t the answer. Even worse, it was an idiotic LA Times article that got him all riled up in the first place, but Dana was too big a coward to attack a mainstream media publication, so he found an online MMA media article whipping boy in Josh Gross’s Sherdog article to vent his frustrations on.
Your timeline is way off. The online UFC backlash began while PRIDE was still opened, before the Yakuza scandal even. It began when Dana started restricting MMA media because he thought (like with non-major sponsors) having too many of them and not enough mainstream media made UFC look bushleague. So then Sherdog put out a few pieces mentioning this and Dana came back writing them off as unimportant because they’re beyond 50,000 online fans now with Spike and million selling PPVs.
But there is no one reason why fans got alienated by UFC’s dominance. Some didn’t like Dana’s attitude and posing in the press like he all but invented the sport and don’t feel a need to worship him because they were enjoying MMA just fine before he got involved with it. Some hated the mediocre fights UFC was selling as the most relevant to all of MMA prior to the PRIDE purchase when they got better (remember the dark days of 2006 shows?) and never came back. And some people just automatically turn on something when it gets too popular.
Also the incident with Sherdog posting Ultimate Fighter results before the season aired (I think for season 3) got Dana pissed I forgot to add.
I want to see James Toney fight Survival Tobita
@Mark
Exactly.
I would only add that as UFC’s popularity grew (especially after S1 of TUF) there was a whole new breed of fan emerging on the Interwebz.
Newbies who knew absolutely nothing about MMA (including PRIDE) but considered themselves experts because they saw Griffin vs. Bonnar, and watched some Royce Gracie highlights on Youtube.
Having thousands of these kids flooding forums and blogs as enthusiastic brand advocates for Zuffa was more than enough to anger some long-time fans, and create UFC-related backlash.
Just my two cents.
Why would need to worship Dana to enjoy the UFC? If you want to avoid him, it’s easy. He barely has screen time on most UFC cards. His main exposure is through TUF and the Internet.
Yes, the media credentials being pulled was really the start of the war. But that doesn’t change the fact that people covering the sport were rooting for Zuffa’s demise for many years despite the fact that they were the top dog for the majority of it. You lose all credibility for years when that happens. And we still see the after effects of that today. There is still the underlying issues between Zuffa and the MMA media. They are always quick to throw Zuffa under the bus without getting the full story and even quicker to hype up their competition who often times were nit deserving of it.
Onita > Toney’s dad
“Having thousands of these kids flooding forums and blogs as enthusiastic brand advocates for Zuffa was more than enough to anger some long-time fans, and create UFC-related backlash.”
This is incorrect. Back before TUF, the MMA fanbase was small but extremely loyal. Both the internet fans and the guys running the website felt like part of them were invested into the sport. Heck, they might of had a point since they were the only ones keeping the sport alive, and doing so through websites like Sherdog, ADCC, The Underground, and a few others.
So when Zuffa banned the online media, those long time fans took it personally. They felt betrayed. The general feeling was: “We helped keep you alive when times were tough, and now that you are a bigger success, you don’t need us anymore.”
Both sides were right and wrong. Zuffa had trusted some of these fans for advice early on, and that went completely bad. White & Fertitta were even on The UG to ask questions of people. What the hardcore fans wanted wasn’t what the casual fans wanted. Zuffa put together fights like Pulver/Uno and Hughes/Sakurai to please this fanbase. And it got them only more in debt. So Zuffa likely felt betrayed as well. So when the chance to make a clean cut from these overbearing fans presented itself, they ripped the band-aid off in one quick swoop.
If anything, most of the TUF fans are pro-UFC. It is the long time fans that turned against Zuffa. Oh, a lot of them being Pride fanboys didn’t help the equation either.
Here is some interesting reading from back in the day… Some fans perspective on the media ban…
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=799&zoneid=13
And Josh Gross telling people the results of TUF 3 or 4 (forget which one)… Was a direct result of Zuffa banning them from their events. And it was Josh Gross who did it. If anything, he proved Zuffa’s point on why they were banned in the first place…. Because they were not professional.
Of course, the hardcore fans defended Sherdog at the time because they hated Zuffa so much. But in reality, Sherdog should have been working on showing how they are a credible news source and getting back into the UFC’s, not acting like a child and hurting their credibility more.
Looks like Thiago Silva was going into the main event with a pretty badly banged up back – to the extent that he was seriously considering pulling out.
That probably explains why he was gassing so badly and overall looking pretty tenative. I hope he was well compensated for, all intents and purposes, saving the entire card this weekend.
@45
Fans of Pride are MMA fans.
People who don’t know a single fighter outside of the UFC are ‘ultimate fighting’ fans, and probably don’t even know what the acronym ‘MMA’ means.
THESE are the jerks that turn long-time fans of the sport into anti-UFC haters.
I like the UFC just fine, but you can only hear Dana White make fun of Fedor, tear down Strikeforce, and spout one bulls#it statement after another before you want to just tune it out completely.
So another guy was nearly crippled yet soldiered on to give the fans their money’s worth. Yeah I won’t hold my breath on that, guys fight injured all the time considering the fact that after 3 rounds the guy with a serious back injury looked better than his opponent. This smells to me like another case of Nogitis guys claming to be more injuired than they were to excuse them being beat which is kinda sad really since I was impressed with Thiago’s performance overall.
Brazilians love excuses. It’s been going on for 5+ years. Hence why I think Tito Ortiz is at least 25% Brazalian… The excuses that come out of his mouth after every fight makes me think he was raised in the mother country….
I guess all those rumors about Silva being hurt were true in the end.
The word back then was that Thiago was offered a hunk of cash to go ahead with the fight – I sure hope that was true because if he’d been even a fraction fitter than he was on Saturday his chances of pulling off the ‘W’would have been alot higher.
I would be inclined to agree with you, EJ and 45, had this not been a strong rumour GOING INTO the fight.
This is far different from Tito’s – “I’m 120% healthy, never been in better shape in my whole life, you’re not even gonna buh-leev it – tune in and watch me win my way back to the title” –> “I had a cracked skull, broken nose, torn labia…wait ’til next time when I’m 100% healthy” (lather, rinse repeat) – when he looks like the same 1-D fighter.
Oh, I actually believe that Silva was injured here. But don’t make that known to the press. If you fight, then you think you can win in the condition you came in. Anything else is just an excuse.
@45 Huddle
haha Post #19 is hilarious, and 100% true. I can’t remember the last time a Brazilian lost without a crazy excuse to back it up.
@The Gaijin
I can’t stop laughing at “torn labia”! I hope no one in my office asks me what I’m laughing at…
Toney’s dad musta been Abdullah the Butcher.
Seriously, what is next Toney on the side of the street with a sign,, “will fight for food?”
This is a very desperate act for another bitter boxer who believes that their 1 sided discipline is superior, but can’t put food on the table because the promoters killed the most of their industry.
Get your media credentials!
http://www.bzapr.com/CREDENTIALS/
I HIGHLY doubt that Toney has any long term career goals in the UFC or MMA.
I think it’s a safe bet that what he’s looking for is one, maybe two fights tops. With Kimbo likely being his main target.
Which,I’m sure,has Dana’s attention as it would definitely be a big PPV success given the personalities involved & the “boxing vs MMA” angle. Not only that, but it solves the problem of finding an opponent that wouldn’t figure to totally decimate Kimbo nor be an obvious jobber just brought in to be a sacrificial lamb to him either. Perhaps allowing the UFC a longer opportunity tomake $$$ off of him.
And, should he get KO’d by Toney, it won’t be one of Dana’s heavyweight stars that gets taken out & loses some of his credibility in the process, but “just a streetfighter” who got schooled by a future Hall of Fame boxer.
It’s a win win situation IMO.
45’s post #14 is pretty much on the money in his own weird way. You can credit Sherdog and the Underground a bit for the survival of MMA in the US, which left a lot of the fans from that time feeling pretty entitled.
The truth is, Sherdog became a giant site that rakes in money and became a career for a few people. With that should’ve came hiring professional journalists with a background in the sport instead of some of the guys like Breen who are knowledgeable fans and can make for entertaining on-air personalities but don’t bring much legitimacy to their work.
How do I believe Toney is likely do in the octagon?
Obviously, it all depends on the opponent.
Against Kimbo or let’s say a catch-weight bout vs Liddell, I think he’d knock them out.
Sure,there’s always the chance that either one of them could take him down & scale him like a fish out of water. But, I have to believe that he’d do some serious crosstraining & not just show up for the paycheck like Ray Mercer did against Kimbo in their match a couple of years ago.
Let’s face it,he has a FAR bigger legacy as a fighter to live up to & a lot more pride in his skills than Mercer has ever had.
Plus, he’s not going to be as naive as Mercer obviously was going into his match by assuming that it’d be a straight up fistfight ala all of Kimbo’s YouTube bouts.
“Sure,there’s always the chance that either one of them could take him down & scale him like a fish out of water. But, I have to believe that he’d do some serious crosstraining & not just show up for the paycheck like Ray Mercer did against Kimbo in their match a couple of years ago.”
Bulllllshiiiiiiiiiit…as pointed out by Breen, Duane Ludwig has some serious striking chops and everyone said how deadly he’d be once he learned takedown defense – its been 9 years of mma training and he still has ZERO takedown defense. James Toney and every other aged, shot, over-the-hill boxer isn’t going to magically pick it up in 6-12 months..not happening. May be that there’s a slight chance with Kimbo, but he’s got a pretty big head start and tutelage at some pretty serious camps.
Toney looked shot fighting against a journeyman a few months ago, he is still good enough to fuck people up standing in MMA, but he is a spent force and I can guarantee you that he won’t train any grappling at all. This is the same guy who was not motivated enough to get in shape to fight in high profile boxing fights.
I still want to see it, but its just a quick cash grab by Toney. I don’t even think that it will happen since the UFC won’t offer him big money and I question how many boxing fans will actually care since they don’t care about Toney at this point. Still, Toney and his big mouth will bring in a lot of casual fans who want to see boxing vs MMA.
“bulllllshiiiiiiit”. Really?
So nice to see how well you respect opinions differing from your own…
That said, James Toney isn’t “Bang” Ludwig. He’s James Toney. Who will succeed or fail on his very own merits as a fighter.
And, were he to be matched up with Kimbo Slice as seems to be the likeliest scenario, we’re talking about an individual who was KO’d just a wee bit over a year ago by an off balance jab thrown by a retreating last minute fill in opponent.
Sure,his skills may have improved since then,but his chin? It’s doubtfull. And, if we’ve learned anything by Ray Mercer’s destruction of Tim Sylvia this summer,it’s that it only takes one shot from a ( even former ) world class boxer to bring things to a sudden end.
Oh don’t be so pedantic…I was merely pointing out the overwhelming evidence against the oft mentioned sentiment of, “Just teach this great striker x some takedown defense, a good 1-2 years and he’ll be unstoppable.”
These guys just can’t be magically taught all the intricacies of grappling after adopting and learning a far different game for so long. Too many ingrained habits (Good and bad) have been formed – and to think an unmotivated, lazy and finished 40yr old boxer will be the one to break the mold is frankly pretty unrealistic.
“And, if we’ve learned anything by Ray Mercer’s destruction of Tim Sylvia this summer,it’s that it only takes one shot from a ( even former ) world class boxer to bring things to a sudden end.”
Yeah but the difference is that Ray Mercer hits very, VERY hard and always had great punching power. And clearly still does to this day. James Toney is a slickster with a decent right hand but not much above average power, especially since going up to heavyweight. And especially in the last few years. Not all great pro boxers hit like mack trucks.
Didn’t Ray Mercer get tooled on by Kimbo?
“Didn’t Ray Mercer get tooled on by Kimbo?”
Yeah, in an exhibition match Kimbo beat Mercer via standing guillotine choke. It’s on Youtube if you want to see it.
What’s youtube? Are any of Kimbo’s other fights on there too?
Toney’s over-hyped boxing defense consists of him bending over at the waist, I’d love to see him try that against a takedown… but really I just hope Dana does the right thing and tells the deadbeat dad to screw off.
Oh yeah, and I’m still pissed about that Dave Tiberi decision.
So, are the fighters with the highest profiles coming out of UFC 108 James Toney (who may never even fight in MMA) and Fedor Emelianenko (due to Dana’s claim he’s talked to M-1 recently)? If so, that is really hilarious.
James Toney was looking for the Ultimate Fast-food Carnival…
Man, if Dana’s hard-on for the internet is all about Sakurai being suggested as a good opponent for Matt Hughes 8 years ago, then that is beyond freakin’ stupid.
First off, Sakurai wasn’t even a star in Japan so I don’t know what he was expecting. It would be one thing to bring in Sakuraba and then be pissed it didn’t draw, but come on, Shooto wasn’t even big in Japan much less somewhere where DVDs weren’t even available of it beyond tape traders.
Secondly, I refuse to see how anybody could see that as anything but a move to keep the current fanbase happy. It would be like ROH expecting WWE level draws for when they bring in NOAH wrestlers: all they’re doing is appealing to the current fanbase who like Puro and when the house and DVD sales are the same they always are they’re not shocked. Expecting anything more would just be insane. It was a gift to your loyal fans and Hughes’ profile was raised by beating him, that’s enough.
Third, UFC 36 was a ridiculously stacked card so if they were holding something that wasn’t even the main event responsible for its failure something is wrong with their brains. You had Mir/Williams, Lindland/Miletich, Rizzo/Arlovski and Couture/Barnett, which is a good chunk of all of UFC’s stars at the time outside of Tito, Vitor and Liddell. So if that show wasn’t going to draw, nothing the UFC had was. And a few roundtrip plane tickets for a Japanese fighter and his entourage can’t be blamed. Especially 8 years later.
Dana White used aging stars regularly to pacify the fanbase as well: There was a reason why they signed Tank Abbott, and it wasn’t because Tank was a proven heavyweight prospect. Same with bringing back Kimo. Obviously the entire growth of MMA today can be spotted to Royce Gracie and Ken Shamrock coming back for fights against younger competition.
The argument since is that the UFC has strengthened itself to no longer needing freakshow style fights with old guys who can’t compete, but that went out when they decided to hand over tons of money to Kimbo Slice.
Meh.
I think that sums it up.