Thursday, July 24, 2003 | 9:24 a.m.
The alleged unreasonableness of promoter Don King and middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins brought James Toney and Evander Holyfield together.
After beating Vassiliy Jirov in April for the International Boxing Federation cruiserweight championship, Toney said he wanted to fight IBF heavyweight champ Chris Byrd.
That fight was scuttled when King, who promotes Byrd, couldn't come to terms with Toney's promoter, Dan Goossen.
Goossen then had a Toney vs. Hopkins fight done on paper, but that fell through when Hopkins reneged when it came time to sign.
Holyfield, meanwhile, was in line to face World Boxing Association heavyweight champ Roy Jones Jr. and was negotiating for the bout with King, who promotes Jones, before rejecting it due to an options clause he refused to accept.
The solution for Toney and Holyfield? Fight each other.
"Toney vs. Hopkins would have been a fun promotion, but Toney vs. Holyfield is a super promotion," Goossen said Wednesday at Mandalay Bay, where the fight was formally announced. "These are two guys the fans want to see fight. They're warriors. They'll go toe to toe.
"For James, this is a lot, lot bigger fight than one with Hopkins, and for Evander it's an option that he had that turned out to be a good one for him."
Holyfield, 40, is a former four-time heavyweight world champion who is 38-6-2 with 25 knockouts.
Toney, 34, is 66-4-2 with 42 KOs.
The opening line in the sports book at Mandalay Bay has Holyfield at minus 145 and Toney at plus 125.
"I'll have to be the very best I can be," Holyfield said. "It should be an exciting fight but it shouldn't be a long one. It's hard for a fight like this to go the distance."
While this will be Toney's debut as a heavyweight, he says that's where he should have been all along.
"I'm at the weight I should have been my whole career," he said, expecting to weigh around 225 for the bout. "He said he's going to walk right through me because I'm not a natural heavyweight, but we'll see.
"Am I supposed to be scared or intimidated by what he's done? I'm old school. I'm going to show you what I can do at my real weight."
Toney began his pro career in 1988 as a middleweight and won championships at 160 and 168 pounds before slipping into a period in which he continued to fight, but not at the level and against the type of competition that he had been facing earlier in his career.
"I took a little time off and lost focus," he said. "I got myself back together (and) I'm here to stay. I'm not going anywhere."
Goossen feels Toney has retained his youth in spite of his advancing age and 72-fight career.
"He's never been a drug user or a drinker," he said of Toney. "He may have let himself get out of condition by eating too much, but he doesn't act like a fighter with 72 fights.
"He spent a few years in the twilight zone as far as the general public was concerned, but he's been focused and determined of late."
The winner of this fight certainly will be in position to extend his career, likely with a world-title fight to follow.
"In a lot of ways, this is like a championship fight," Goossen said. "If James wins, he'd like to fight Lennox Lewis or someone other than Roy Jones. If Evander wins he can go back to negotiations for a fight with Jones with some additional ammunition.
"This is a fight that allows the man who wins to get in the position that he wants to be in."
And Holyfield still wants to fight Jones.
"I think that fight could come back around," he said, knowing that Jones' advisers had him at the top of their wish list from the moment Jones defeated John Ruiz March 1 at the Thomas & Mack Center.
As for Holyfield's quest to once again become the undisputed heavyweight champion, he refuses to be deterred.
"George Foreman was 46 when he won his last title," he said. "I still have time."
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