NABO heavyweight boxing champion James “Lights Out” Toney has officially signed a multi-fight deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championships according to several sources. There is no assigned opponent for him yet nor is there an official date, but sources close to us indicate a possible pay-per-view match-up between the boxing veteran Toney and Miami-based street fighter Kimbo Slice.
Kimbo Slice was scheduled to take on TUF 10 fighter Mike Mitrione as part of the UFC 113 fight card in Montreal. Since that was taken off the UFC website, it makes it almost obvious that the fight between Toney and Kimbo may be announced sometime soon. We’ll be sure to keep you guys posted once a bout agreement is official.
Not too long ago, Toney was quoted saying that UFC President was a joke…
From Toney a little over a month ago:
“Dana White’s first offer was a joke and that lets me know he really don’t want to do this … his offer was laughable. That’s the reason I wanted the camera guy in the room with us when I sat down with Dana, so the fans would know that I was serious and if it didn’t happen, it wasn’t because of me.”
It seems like both parties have been able to come to terms as we now find Toney as part of the new UFC roster. We also found out that the former trainer of Rampage Jackson, Juanito Ibarra, has been selected by Toney himself to prepare him for his first-ever MMA fight.
From Ibarra:
“We have been working on stretching, sprawling and movement, all the things he will need to get a handle on…We get along real well. He’s a great student. He considers me a teacher. Hopefully this chemistry that we have can carry us to a title in MMA. James Toney will fight anybody. It’s up to us to help him figure things out. What I would like to see and what his manager would like to see … Kimbo Slice. It makes sense. The weight factor makes sense. Maybe a 220 [lbs.] fight somewhere in there. Two guys who have great names. I would love to see that fight …I think that’s a great opponent … hopefully the UFC would consider something like that. He’s said it all over the Internet. He calls him Simba. He says he wanted Simba Slice. I’d like to get him down to 205 and fight the winner of a Chuck and Tito. Fights with Kimbo Slice and he goes on to fight the winner of a Chuck and Tito fight …I think it would sell and I think it would be a hell of a fight.””
We’ll keep you guys posted on the latest news with James Toney and when we’ll see him in the octagon.