Originally Posted by
cityboy
Tough Guys and Gentlemen
What is America’s obsession with tough guy athletes? It seems that for years the typical American boxing fan seems to be drawn to arrogant tough guys who claim to be from “the mean streets” and seem to have a total lack of respect for the sport and anybody other than themselves. Case and point – why is James Toney a more popular American heavyweight than Chris Byrd? Look at their heavyweight records and there is no comparison as to who has done more. Byrd is a true class act, a real good guy in the sport, and deserves more credit than he gets (hopefully he moves down to Cruiserweight and makes some noise there before he retires). James Toney is often blunt as congress is clueless, and the way he turned up badly out of shape for his fight against Hasim Rahman, was an embarrassment to the sport, in my opinion. He’s not shy about giving his comments about any subject, either. After being given a gift draw with Hasim Rahman (in a fight he deserved to lose), at the post fight presser, Toney ranted that “Ya’ll keep trying to make a white champion, but it will never happen”, “Ya’ll keep trying to build up these German and Russian guys, but they can’t fight”, “Ya’ll need to quit that” and so on.
He made sure to mention that as “Afro-Americans”, Rahman and he were “real” fighters. So if I'm to follow Toney's logic, you have to be of that particular demographic to be a “real” heavyweight fighter? Problem is many American fans and boxing media alike seem to agree with that assessment based on their lack of regard and respect for the division’s Eastern European big men. In a recent interview in a popular American Hip Hop magazine, he proudly proclaimed that “Black men are the sh*t, that’s why white men want to be us, and why white women want to f*ck us”. Look, it’s good to be proud and all but this is over the line in my opinion, and comments like this would not be tolerated from any fighter of European extraction. Can somebody say “double standard”? It really makes you wonder...
Bookmarks