It Will Be Lights Out for One or the Other in Toney-Jones Fight

The club is an ornate blues joint on Sunset, with exotic wood carvings and folk artwork by Kurt Zimmerman and Howard Finster along the walls, beneath handmade signs atop doorways that read: NO FIGHTING IN HERE. A menu tantalizes with red beans and dirty rice, jambalaya and Blackened Voodoo beer, and the musical marquee offers an even more tantalizing N’Orleans variety from Buckwheat Zydeco to the Neville Brothers, with a sprinkle of spicy blues acts in between.

In strolls James Toney, in suit and shades. “The baddest man on the planet,” he introduces himself, looking for trouble, looking for any casus belli to provoke a response.

In follows Roy Jones Jr., no wallflower himself. He backs down from no man, from no truth or dare. He once stepped into a boxing ring wearing a dog collar.

Already the rhythm and blues is playing inside their heads, the percussion of fists and shouting of crowds in Vegas that will accompany their middleweight prizefight Nov. 18 at the MGM Grand, the first really great fight of this generation. This is the one even promoter Bob Arum wasn’t overselling when he called it “the best fight of the last 10 years.”

There was another fight Saturday night that might have been the keeper of the decade, Julio Cesar Chavez versus Meldrick Taylor, had it been held three years ago when it should have been. But that was a hot bout that simmered too long. Whereas this one, Toney and Jones, has everything boxing has been waiting for, begging for, two undefeated hitters in their prime, a dollop of bad blood, the prospect of more spilled.

In a neutral corner of the blues club stands Sugar Ray Leonard, last of the red-hot glovers, yesteryear’s icon with a vested interest in the combatants of the present, affiliated as he is with the hotel serving as host. Leonard sounds more than a little impressed with Toney. More than a little impressed with Jones. They remind him of, well, him.

“This is the most anticipated fight of the ‘90s, with good reason,” says Sugar Ray, fit and cool in a white suit coat, long past his prime but hardly gone to seed. “This fight, well, this fight reminds everyone, including me, of my fights with Duran, of my fight with Hagler, of, of. . . . “

It’s on the tip of his tongue.

Someone says, “Hearns?”

“Hearns!” Leonard says. “Sorry.”

High praise indeed. Those were the most memorable of non-heavyweight bouts, in spite of any momentary lapse of memory on Leonard’s part. His brawls with Roberto Duran, his ambush of an almost universally favored Marvin Hagler, his nonstop-action war with Thomas Hearns, those were the fights that coaxed half of Hollywood to ringside and drew hundreds of thousands into theaters to view on closed-circuit. It was the age of Boxing Beyond Ali, keeping interest alive in a dying sport.

Toney and Jones. Finally, a fight with a couple of raging bulls, rather than one with someone ready to be put out to pasture. Don’t go swallowing what Lights Out Toney says when he takes you aside almost confidentially and assures you, “Roy Jones ain’t fit to carry my gym bag.” This is the way Toney works himself up into a lather, arms himself for combat.

It is his specialty, in fact, the pre-fight. Toney is the mean-as-a- wolverine mangler from Ann Arbor, Mich., who set the tone for future fights at a weigh-in alongside one Albert Gonzalez, to whom he turned and snarled: “You’re nothing.” This in turn inspired Michael Nunn to condescendingly pat Toney on the pate before their little get-together, whereupon it took several strong men to pry the two apart. Toney then wiped up the floor with Nunn.

Last time we saw Lights Out in these parts, he was helping launch the reopening of the Grand Olympic Auditorium. Matched with an anonymous pug named Tim Littles who violently head-butted him, a blood-smeared Toney was told by the referee after three rounds that Round 4 would be the last, no matter what. He promptly sent Littles to dreamland.

Charming fellow, Toney.

“I go into any fight wanting to decapitate somebody,” he says.

However, he does not daunt Jones, not so one would know it. Jones acknowledges fear only of earthquakes, making him reluctant to visit Los Angeles even for promotional purposes. As long as the room stands still, he will go toe to toe with Toney any time convenient to both.

“I’m fine in L.A., as long as nothing strange happens,” Jones says. “It ain’t that I’m afraid. Like a tornado brewing in the gulf, I don’t run from them. It’s just that fighting somebody like Toney is easier, because, oh, you know, here’s something I can volunteer for.”

They were in no particular rush to arrange this date, until Arum and others emphasized that the public was getting sick of paying good money to see clowns and has-beens and pudgy pugilists who couldn’t be struck below the belt because they were all belt. Arum made it clear that boxing needed a bout between two men who had arrived, not one guy on his way up opposing someone on his way down.

Even those who dislike boxing might like this one. Toney and Jones go together like red beans and rice. They were meant for each other.

“Only one thing about Jones,” says Toney.

Yes?

“He ain’t never been in no earthquake till he been hit by me.”