On Friday, November 4th, James Toney will be looking to turn back the clock once more to defeat Russia’s very own, Denis Lebedev. Toney is coming off a horrible, horrible win against Damon Reed. A fight in which he looked his worse, physically, and skillfully. He came into the fight with bubbling fat all over his trunks weighing in at a career high 253 and looking painfully slow, and old. Things have changed, though, he is serious again and judging by the weigh in has looked at the press conferences and through training videos, he is very serious.
What is on the line is the interim WBA World Cruiserweight title. A weight division he hasn’t fought in over 8 years. Which was very similar to this fight coming up. In 2003, Toney’s last fight at Cruiserweight, he fought hard hitting, undefeated Vassiliy Jirov. Toney put on a boxing clinic, in an entertaining somewhat one-sided fight in favor of Toney. The only real differences in this fight against Lebedev is that, well, Toney is older, is on the road, and Lebedev isn’t undefeated. (according to the judges against Marco Huck…a fight, in which pretty much all boxing fans thing Lebedev won) James Toney is in for a dangerous fight, and will need to turn back the clock against somebody like Denis Lebedev.
On the otherside, Denis Lebedev has had two careers so far. One career from 2001-2004 as a Light Heavyweight. And then he came back into the ring in 2008 as a Cruiserweight and has knocked everybody out, besides the Marco Huck “loss.” In his last fight though, he didn’t look so hot. An old, shot, Roy Jones Jr. was giving him problems for the first 5 rounds. May’be Lebedev was just letting Jones have his fun…or may’be Jones really was making Lebedev look bad, before Lebedev stepped on the gas. Either way, his performance peaked James Toney’s interest and vuala we have an intriguing match over in Russia between the skilled old fighter (who we really don’t know how much he has left in the tank) versus the limited, but powerful punching Denis Lebedev.
Also, on the card that you might want to keep an eye on is Super Bantamweight Alexander Bakhtin. A pretty slick, skilled fighter who easily took care of Jose Angel Beranza earlier this year on the undercard of the Lebedev-Jones Jr. fight. Bakhtin has nice skills, but no real power. That might be a problem has he steps up the competition, but at the moment, he is a decent undefeated prospect with some nice boxing skills. Ismayl Sillakh a light Heavyweight prospect, but is on the verge to becoming a top 10 contender. Sillakh is one of most skilled undefeated prospects in boxing right now. Great footwork, good power, good jab, good combos, and has a high boxing IQ. His only flaw might be his punch resistance. That hasn’t been a problem, yet, in the pro ranks, but in the amateurs he was stopped a few times. We will see if that becomes a problem in the near future, it shouldn’t be a problem with this fight coming up.
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