Promoter says Toney ‘railroaded’ him out of deal before signing with UFC

Mar 3, 2010 | by MattE | 2 Comments

By Matt Erickson
cagedin.mma@gmail.com

When James Toney was spotted at UFC 108 in January, the rumors immediately began to circulate that the professional boxer wanted to take a stab at mixed martial arts.

Reports said Toney, who has a 72-6-3 record as a boxer, spoke with UFC president Dana White after the event about fighting for the promotion. And just last week, Toney called White a “straight up ho” on Fighthype.com for the offer presented to him.

But on Wednesday, the 41-year-old NABO and IBA heavyweight champion got his wish — a reported five-fight contract from the UFC, according to MMAFighting.com.

A cut-and-dried contract negotiation? Not so fast, says MMA promoter Corey Fischer. Fischer is teaming with Eric “Butterbean” Esch for the first big show in Massachusetts since regulation, a card for the Korea-based Moosin promotion on April 23 at the DCU Center in Worcester.

On Wednesday, Fischer told Caged In that he had been working on a deal with Toney, a longtime friend of Esch, to fight former UFC light heavyweight Houston Alexander — and that after giving a “100 percent guaranteed” verbal agreement, Toney took the deal back to White and used it as a negotiating tool to sign with the UFC.
“We worked on him for two weeks,” Fischer said. “I sent a contract back and forth with him and (Toney’s agent) John Arthur, and we had attorneys on the phone and to make a long story short, they agreed to the fight verbally, everything was 100 percent guaranteed, I had all their people on the phone, they said, ‘Hey, let’s do it, you call Korea, tell them you got us, and don’t worry about nothin’.’ We sent him his contract, and he was supposed to send it back. And the next day at noon, they called me and said, ‘Oh, well, James is gonna get on the plane to go talk to Dana.’ The whole deal was they were taking our contract back and forth to Dana to try and get a better deal. And it was probably the most railroaded deal you’ve ever seen in your life.”

Fischer said there is next to nothing he can do about losing what would have been either the main- or co-main event on his card, which currently features former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia against five-time World’s Strongest Man winner  Mariusz Pudzianowski, of Poland, as well as Rich Clementi, Yves Edwards and, Fischer still hopes, Alexander.

“What, I take James Toney to court for a verbal contract, and what do we get out of it? Nothing,” Fischer said. “It slows his process down with Dana White and in the long run, we don’t get anything. To sue for damages? It’s not worth it.”

More importantly, it seems, to Fischer, was a breach of his friendship with Esch.

“He had a 22-year friendship with Eric,” Fischer said. “He told me, ‘I’m doing this fight for Butterbean. I wanna help him out. I’d never screw him over.’ And at the whole end of the deal, he did exactly what he said he wouldn’t do. If that’s the way he treats his friends, so be it.”

According to Fischer, it was perhaps the difference between boxing negotiations and mixed martial arts negotiations, and boxing won out in the end.

“That’s the thing — it is the king of shady when it comes to boxing, but (Toney) was dealing with Butterbean,” Fischer said. “He called him at home, talked to his wife. This is the kind of deal it was — 22-year relationship these guys have. They weren’t best friends, don’t let me kid you. But they did know each other really well. It was that kind of negotiation. It wasn’t like a Don King negotiation with a bag of money. It was more like, ‘Hey, I’m doing this big show, I know you wanna do mixed martial arts, we’ll take care of you, give you a good fight, and then you can go back to the UFC.’ But I think Toney was like, ‘Yeah, sure, give me your contract and let me go make it three times better for myself.’ ”

Fischer said the deal for Toney would have been lucrative.

“He was going to get paid a $10,000 signing bonus up front, $100,000 the day of the show and 50 percent of all the pay-per-view revenues,” Fischer said. “In the long term, it would’ve been a nice chunk of change for James TOney. James Toney probably would’ve made $300,000-400,000.”

Fischer said he has known for a week that Toney was negotiating with the UFC and it was his understanding that the deal had been made. He also said he isn’t sure Toney will get the same type of fight opportunity out of the gate as he would have against Alexander.

“God bless Dana White; Dana does a good job — I’ve got nothing bad to say about the guy,” Fischer said. “He does what he does well, but … Houston Alexander? That was a great fight for James Toney and for Houston. It would’ve been a standup fight. But in my mind, I think Dana White has something to prove. Toney wants to prove that a boxer can fight mixed martial arts and Dana wants to prove that he can’t. So good luck getting an opponent that Toney wants, because I don’t think Dana’s gonna give him one. I think Dana’s gonna give him someone that takes Toney to the ground and pounds his (butt) right to sleep.”

Fischer said the April 23 show will go on as planned and said he hopes to bring in Seth Petruzelli to fight Alexander — if Petruzelli’s potential fight with Josh Barnett for Dream doesn’t happen. He also said he believes the card will be successful and historic in that it will be the first major promotion in Massachusetts.

“The show doesn’t stop with James Toney,” Fischer said. “We’ve got Tim Sylvia fighting Mariusz Pudzianowski, the World’s Strongest Man. In the long term, it sparked something even bigger. More people watch ESPN today and know who the World’s Strongest Man is than watch James Toney’s fights from five or 10 years ago. But we’ve breached Boston first. We’re gonna have 12,000 people there. Yeah, the UFC’s coming (to Boston in August) and they’ll do really well. (But) we’ll have the attendance record for a couple months, and I think we’ll do really well.”

» Posted in: News
» Tagged: #top, houston alexander, james toney, moosin, UFC

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