(Props: Uppercut Magazine, via CP contributor Elias Cepeda.)
I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes. Here’s UFC president Dana White sitting down and having what appears to be a serious conversation about James Toney fighting in the UFC. I realize that’s what he said he was going to do after Toney ambushed him at the UFC 108 post-fight press conference, but I guess I just assumed that it would be one of those meetings where he professes a vague interest and then never calls Toney back. Sort of like what the people at Paramount keep doing to me when I pitch them my script about the dog who learns to fly a plane so he can go find the family that left him for dead in the animal shelter, and then murder them all in their sleep. It’s a fun summer romp.
DW is asking all the right questions here — can Toney wrestle? does he have any takedown defense aside from an unshakable conviction that he won’t ever end up on the ground? is he familiar with what getting kicked in the leg feels like? Call me crazy, but when Toney says he knows all about the "front kick, back kick, side check kick, all of that," I’m not 100% convinced.
It’s the same earlier in the video when the answer to the question about his grappling ability is, "Don’t worry about that, I got surprises for you."
I’m sure you do, James, but seriously. Answer the question. We all know what ‘don’t worry about it’ means in this context. It’s something you say when you would rather not come right out and lie to someone.
Either White doesn’t want to press Toney on it because he respects him too much as a boxer, or else somehow those answers were good enough to soothe DW’s concerns. The former seems more likely than the latter, but we don’t care. Toss him in there with some heavyweight wrestler and let’s see that side check kick. These boxers have got to get an MMA education somehow, and James Toney doesn’t seem like a man who’s learned too many easy lessons in his life.


STEAMPUNK RULES!@