Toney-Barkley Is the Real Thing : Boxing: A week after Bowe-Dokes fiasco, fight for IBF super-middleweight title is expected to be intense.

From the jeers and boos of Madison Square Garden, boxing’s road show will stop tonight at the 4,000-seat pavilion in Caesars Palace, where cheers are far more likely to be heard.

Last Saturday in New York, heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe stopped an outclassed Michael Dokes in one round.

But quite a different sort of match is anticipated tonight, when Iran Barkley fights James Toney.

When Toney and Mike McCallum fought to a draw at Atlantic City in December of 1991, many considered it the fight of the year. For 12 rounds, each took the other’s best shots.

Last March, Barkley and Thomas Hearns had a memorable fight at Caesars, Barkley winning a decision and taking Hearns’ light-heavyweight title. In 1988, Barkley knocked out Hearns to take away his middleweight championship.

Barkley has since won the International Boxing Federation super-middleweight championship, which will be at stake tonight. Toney holds the IBF middleweight title, but it won’t be at risk tonight.

Barkley is 32 and Toney 25, but both have nearly the same experience. Barkley is 30-7, but has fought only six times since the summer of 1990. His last defeat was by decision to Michael Nunn in 1989.

Toney is 33-0-2, but one of his victories was a hotly disputed decision over David Tiberi on Feb. 8, 1991, in Atlantic City. It sparked Congressional hearings on pro boxing.

Toney, of Grand Rapids, Mich., was unbeaten but little known when he got his first break, a 1991 match with highly regarded puncher Merqui Sosa. Toney was supposed to be an easy opponent for Sosa, but instead won on a convincing decision.

That set up one of the major upsets of the 1990s, Toney’s knockout of middleweight champion Michael Nunn, who was fighting in a minor league ballpark in his hometown, Davenport, Iowa.

Since then, Toney has defended his title six times, against the likes of Reggie Johnson, McCallum and Glenn Wolfe. And all the while, he has had difficulty making 160 pounds. Those favoring Toney like him at the heavier weight.

Awkward, unorthodox and seemingly off-balance most of the time, Barkley throws punches from odd and unpredictable angles. For example, the punch that knocked Hearns on his back in his first defeat by Barkley was thrown like a stiff-armed pitcher throwing a fastball.

Barkley has won three titles. He lost the middleweight title he took from Hearns in his next fight, against Roberto Duran. He won a piece of the super-middleweight championship when he stopped Darrin Van Horn 13 months ago. Next he took Hearns’ light-heavyweight title last March, which he later relinquished.

At Friday’s weigh-in, Toney weighed 167 pounds, Barkley 168. Each fighter will earn $1 million tonight, and nearly everyone expects no booing at the finish.