BOXING / CHRIS DUFRESNE : Fighting for Scale Doesn’t Work for Toney

The loss might have quieted James Toney’s rage, softened his scowl, buttoned his lips.

Defeat has been known to humble a man.

No bleepin’ way, Toney would say.

More than two months after decisively losing his International Boxing Federation super-middleweight title to Roy Jones Jr., Toney and his arsenal of expletives are hot on the comeback trail.

Blaming the loss to Jones in part on starvation tactics necessary for him to make 168 pounds, Toney was last seen buffet-hopping his way toward the heavyweight division.

In a step down in class but up in pounds, Toney (44-1-2) returns to the ring Feb. 18 in Las Vegas as a light-heavyweight, against Montell Griffin, as part of the Oscar De La Hoya-John John Molina undercard.

Toney doesn’t plan to be a second banana for long.

” . . . , man, I lost a fight,” Toney said last week in Las Vegas. “I lost a damn fight. I still think I’m the best fighter in the world. I’m going to prove it, time and time again. If I was going to sit home and mope, I wouldn’t have called Bob (Arum) and said, ‘I want to fight as soon as possible.’ I wanted to fight in January, but they said they wanted me to wait till February.

“What you do after you lose, that’s what counts.”

What Toney did, of course, was go ballistic back home in Michigan, where he reportedly threatened to kill his manager, Jackie Kallen.

Toney, the big kidder, said those reports were overblown and that the threats were never serious. After a tense period, he and Kallen are back together, contractually bound through July.

“She’s my manager,” Toney said.

But has Toney changed?

“My attitude ain’t changed a bit,” Toney said. “It got worse.”

Actually, Toney is a relative pussycat, now that his belly is full. In the days preceding the Jones fight, he was at his surly worst.

Toney admits he went weeks at a time without eating.

He tipped the scales at 167 at the weigh-in but, after gorging himself goofy, said he was more than 15 pounds heavier when the bell rang for Round 1.

A bloated Toney was no match for Jones’ speed and quickness.

“I had trouble with the weight,” Toney said. “But I’m not taking anything away from the guy, he won fair and square.”

Onward and upward.

Toney, who said he weighed 220 last week, said he doesn’t know much about the light-heavyweight division.

“What I know about the division is that I’m about to become the champ,” he said. “I’m going to be the light-heavyweight champion, be the cruiserweight champion, and I’m going to be the heavyweight champ with all the chumps out there today.”

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Add Toney: When told that the newly formed World Boxing Union wanted him to fight for its championship belt, Toney seemed excited at first.

“Yes, I do want to fight for it,” he said. “I want the WBO (World Boxing Organization) title.”

Not the WBO, someone corrected, the WBU.

“WBU?” Toney asked. “What the hell is that?”

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George Foreman sued the World Boxing Assn. before and is poised to do it again.

Before he knocked out Michael Moorer to win the heavyweight title in November, Foreman had to go before a Nevada judge to KO the WBA, which did not want to sanction the Foreman-Moorer bout, arguing that Foreman, at 46, was too old for such strenuous activity.

Well, the WBA is at it again. Last week, it voted 5-0 to strip Foreman of his title if he does not defend it against Tony Tucker, the WBA’s No. 1-ranked contender, by March 5.

Foreman is set to make his first defense April 22 at the MGM Grand against Germany’s Axel Schulz.

“When they do what they do, we’re going to get a court order to undo what they’re going to do,” Henry Holmes, Foreman’s lawyer, said this week. “We’re going through with this fight.”

The WBA says that Foreman has violated Rule 5.4, which states that in the event a world champion (Moorer, in this case) loses a title against a fighter who was not the top-ranked contender (Foreman), the new champion must defend his title against the leading available contender (Tucker) within 120 days.

Case closed? Hardly.

Holmes says the WBA ignores an important stipulation in its own rule book that allows a one-year exemption for heavyweights.

Foreman also holds the International Boxing Federation title. Holmes said the IBF has agreed to sanction the Foreman-Schulz fight.

How much weight should be given to boxing organization rules anyway?

The WBA recently dropped Riddick Bowe from its rankings, even though most boxing experts would tell you the former champion is the most talented fighter in the division.

The WBA’s No. 2 contender is a guy named Bruce Seldon. Bowe knocked him out in the first round.

Draw your own conclusions.

If the WBA is allowed to strip Foreman, it plans to treat the world to Tucker-Seldon, the winner to be crowned WBA champion.

Anyone else have goose bumps?

Bottom line: Foreman is the heavyweight champion until he decides to retire or fights a viable contender within a reasonable period.

What’s the big deal, anyway?

On the day the WBA announced its intentions regarding Foreman, the newly formed WBU made Foreman its heavyweight champion.

Boxing Notes

Word has it Larry Goossen gave Oscar De La Hoya the “Golden Boy” boot out of the Big Bear gymnasium Goossen owns after De La Hoya made public comments that he was being overcharged on his rent. De La Hoya returned to the gym the next day, although it took intervention by promoter Bob Arum. Favoritism is a sensitive subject for Goossen, whose brother, Joe, trains the Ruelas brothers, Rafael and Gabriel, at the same Big Bear facility. Rafael and De La Hoya are headed for a May 6 showdown at the MGM Grand.

“It’s a lie,” Larry Goossen said of De La Hoya’s statements. Goossen said De La Hoya pays $2,000 a month and the Ruelas brothers pay $4,000, $2,000 a brother. “He pays the same as everyone else,” Goossen said.

The De La Hoya camp denied it was ever kicked out of the gym, and De La Hoya will soon move to his own training facility in Big Bear.

Roy Jones Jr., International Boxing Federation super-middleweight champion, will make his first title defense March 18 against Antoine Byrd at the Pensacola, Fla., Civic Center, in Jones’ hometown. Jones, who took the title from James Toney on Nov. 18, was named fighter of the year by Boxing Illustrated.

Former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe has arrived in Palm Springs to begin training for his March 11 fight in Las Vegas against Herbie Hide, the World Boxing Organization champion. Bowe dislikes flying, so he made the 2,635-mile trip from his home in Ft. Washington, Md., in his $360,000 motor home. “If a plane falls, it’s a done deal,” Bowe says, “I like my chances of survival in a mobile home.” . . . If Bowe beats Hide, he will next fight either Cuba’s Jorge Luis Gonzalez or, possibly, Evander Holyfield. Rock Newman, Bowe’s manager, said Gonzalez might be willing to step aside as long as he is guaranteed a fight with the winner of Bowe-Holyfield III.

Genaro Hernandez, World Boxing Assn. junior-lightweight champion, says he is reluctant to fight Jorge Paez as part of Forum Boxing’s four title-fight card at The Pond of Anaheim on March 31. Hernandez, in fact, had not signed the contract as of early this week. “I know I’m going to get bad publicity for it,” Hernandez said. “They’re going to compare me to Oscar (De La Hoya). He knocked Paez out in the second round. If I can’t knock him out in two, the press is going to ask, ‘Why didn’t you do it?’ ”

A showdown between Hernandez and De La Hoya now appears unlikely. Hernandez could have had the slot John John Molina filled for De La Hoya’s Feb. 18 card, but the Hernandez camp said it was insulted by a $300,000 offer.