Toney Hopes Working for Scale Pays Off

James Toney could see the top of the hill, but he knew he wasn’t going to get there.

It was the middle of the day in the middle of the summer in the middle of the San Fernando Valley. With the sun beating down on him, his stomach growling louder than the trash-talking Toney himself, with the effects of too many pizzas and too many cigars coming back to ravage his body, Toney finally dropped to the grass on what he would ultimately name Puke Hill, for obvious reasons, at Pierce College in Woodland Hills.

The man who some have called over the hill at 38 could not reach the summit that day.

But he returned the next day and the next and the next, knowing the top of that hill was only the first plateau in what Toney hopes will be yet another climb toward a heavyweight title.

He will reach the next level Saturday night at Staples Center, where, as the No. 2 contender in the World Boxing Council, Toney will face Samuel Peter of Nigeria, ranked No. 3.

It’s a climb Toney was ill-prepared to take six weeks ago, when he began training for Saturday’s fight at 265 pounds, nearly 28 more than he weighed for his last fight 5 1/2 months ago and 48 more than he weighed when he first entered the heavyweight division three years ago.

Toney likes to brag that he fears no man. In truth, he fears the man he has become. He knows that his expanding waistline can diminish his chances of ever again putting a belt around that ample waist.

Toney tries to shrug it off.

“I’m a fat man,” he said. “What do you expect?”

But away from public view, he has hardly been shrugging off his weight problems. He has put the pizza back in the box, the cigars back in the humidor and is sticking to chicken and egg whites and all the other components of a healthy diet.

He is still chugging up that Woodland Hills hill, but is now reaching the summit daily, running for an hour and a quarter at high noon. Minus the music and the slow-motion effects, Toney is emulating Rocky Balboa, the grassy slope substituting for the museum steps.

And Toney has even added yoga to his routine, citing its ability to improve balance and stretch muscles.

“I went back to basics,” he said.

The work has paid off. Tony stepped on the scale for Thursday’s weigh-in in front of Staples Center at 233 pounds. That’s hardly svelte for the 5-foot-10 fighter, but it’s a lot better than 265.

Nevertheless, Freddie Roach, Toney’s trainer, shakes his head at the number on the scale.

“He feels he needs the size to fight a big guy like Peter,” who weighed in at 257, Roach said. “I feel he’d be a heck of a lot better with mobility and speed. I like him light. He likes being heavier.

“I would have liked to have seen him come into this fight in the 220s, but that is not going to happen. James Toney is James Toney.”

And that’s not a bad thing, insists his promoter, Dan Goossen.

“His weight is not the problem,” Goossen said. “It’s his conditioning. I’ve seen guys who didn’t have weight problems who couldn’t fight. James is in great shape. That’s all I care about. When he’s in shape, no one in the heavyweight division can beat him.”

Toney’s conditioning became an even bigger issue after he lost to Hasim Rahman in March, his second shot at a heavyweight crown.

The first ended in a brief moment of euphoria, followed by weeks of controversy and anguish. After beating John Ruiz for the World Boxing Assn. heavyweight title in April 2005 at New York’s Madison Square Garden, Toney tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone. The fight was declared no-contest by the New York State Athletic Commission and Toney was stripped of his title, suspended for 90 days and fined $100,000.

The Rahman fight, for the WBC version of the championship, ended in a draw, Toney’s lack of stamina evident in the latter rounds. “Nine times out of 10, he has proved me wrong,” about his conditioning, Roach said. “But that wasn’t the case in the Rahman fight.”

“After that fight,” Goossen said, “Rahman was telling people he was thankful he didn’t get Toney at 100%.”

Goossen said there was no point in lecturing Toney on a problem he knows he has and didn’t want to hear about.

“He was smoking 10 cigars a day,” Goossen said. “He had surpassed George Burns. But you don’t sit down with James and say, ‘This is what you’re going to do.’ You let his experience dictate to him what he has to do.”

No one can accuse Toney of lacking experience. Saturday night’s fight will be his 78th (69-4-3, one no-decision) in a career that stretches 18 years. Over that period, he has won an impressive number of titles, but continually needed a bigger belt to commemorate his championships.

He began as a middleweight, 160 pounds, and beat Michael Nunn in 1991 for the International Boxing Federation middleweight title. Toney moved up eight pounds and, in 1993, defeated Iran Barkley for the IBF super-middleweight crown. Toney fought for the 175-pound IBF light-heavyweight championship, but lost to Montell Griffin in 1995. Toney went up to 190 pounds and triumphed over Vassiliy Jirov for the IBF cruiserweight title in 2003.

And now, he wants to finish his career with a heavyweight title that won’t be stripped from him before he can even be measured for a belt.

“It’s not how much you weigh,” Toney said. “It’s how you look.”

Toney certainly looks better than he did six weeks ago. And he’s confident he’ll look good Saturday night. After all, he has already beaten his worst impulses. How much tougher can Samuel Peter be?

steve.springer@latimes.com