As James Toney continues to prepare for his expected, August 28th, UFC debut against Randy Couture, the boxer’s training camp continues to receive a lot of scrutinizing attention. Guess when you declare publicly that, despite having little to no experience in mixed-martial-arts heads of fighters may go “into orbit”, people are going to be real curious as to whether or not you’ll back that sh-t up.
Well, recently it was revealed that not only is Toney training with Strikeforce champ “King Mo” Lawal, but reports surfaced that Toney may have actually tapped out the accomplished wrestler (could it have been a deliberately leaked bit of ‘counter intelligence? Dum, dum, dum, dum). Now in a recent story from MMA Fighting, the outlet is reporting that Toney has hired Dean Lister to help him out with his ground game; yeah, we’d say a former ADCC champ would probably do the trick. Although the story cited anonymous sources for the report and that Lister did not respond to MMA Fighting’s inquiries, the article points out that Lister is also Lawal’s BJJ coach. Connect the dots now….
On the flip side of all the Toney hype, it was reported in the latest episode of MMA Live, that the UFC newcomer is reportedly “dragging his feet over the bout agreement signing with Randy Couture.” Temporary hiccup or…?
With his mixed martial arts debut about two months away, former multi-division boxing champion