James Toney Unlikely To Achieve True Success in Octagon

The Sport of Mixed Martial Arts is fairly self explanatory, it is a hybrid of martial arts being used in order to determine who are the best fighters in the world. And that's just it, it's the art of fighting. Boxing, on the other hand is the art of punching, not fighting, because of this James Toney will be unable to achieve any major success inside the octagon.

James Toney is a great boxer who has pretty remarkable knockout power in his hands, im pretty sure nobody is disputing that, but the problem with him fighting in the octagon is that he will not be skilled enough or experienced enough to fight in mixed martial arts. 

To break it down, James Toney has had no wrestling experience at all and at 41 years of age it may well be a case of "you cant teach an old dog new tricks". The new trick being defending the takedown, James Toney may be able to hire the best wrestling trainers in the world but the fact is that there have been fighters who have been wrestling and competing in mixed martial arts for years and years who have been unable to defend randy couture's takedowns.  

Another potential problem with James Toneys fight game is that he may well be unable to comfortably adapt to the rules of mixed martial arts, The middle-aged former boxing champ has spent his "fighting" career under boxing rules which means no takedowns, no clinching, no ground game, no kicks, no knees, no elbows and no submissions. all the fighting techniques that a fighter is able to utilize in the octagon may be too much for the boxing great, the stone cold fact is that he isn't going to be used to his opponents kicking him, shooting in on his legs for takedowns and certainly not submissions (he probably thinks the rear naked choke is a sexual position).

James Toney's fight game is going to boil down to two possible scenarios, one - he will come in overconfident and being completely reliant on his boxing ability or he will attempt to defend from couture's grappling ability, end up fighting off of his back which he has no experience in and more than likely did not plan on doing. In either case it would take a miracle for him to win unless he gets lucky and catches couture with a punch that lands flush or extreme carelessness on the part of "the natural",  Toney's chances of succeeding in mixed martial arts are slim at best.

The very concept of someone with one outstanding aspect of overall mixed martial arts is ridiculous even for a guy in their 20's or 30's but at his age it is truly going against all odds. Let's keep in mind its not just sprawl and brawl he has to achieve, he is basing his mma game on boxing, not striking but just a part of striking. He more than likely either cant or wont kick, or fight in the clinch for that matter. Lastly and perhaps most importantly the amount of training he is going to receive in wrestling and other forms of grappling are simply not going to be enough. Even if a miracle happens he has to face division 1 and 2 NCAA collegiate wrestlers like Lesnar and Carwin. Not everyone who learns to wrestle can wrestle at that level let alone be champions at it. So to sum up, he is more than likely going to have a poor wrestling game, even worse ground game and has power in just a PART of striking. This is the reason mixed martial arts was invented, so that fighters could neutralize their opponents strengths and are essentially forced to be well-rounded fighters.