James Toney Labels Randy Couture A ‘Coward’, Claims He Refused Boxing Rematch
Former three-weight professional boxing world champion, James Toney has slammed former undisputed UFC heavyweight champion, Randy Couture, claiming the latter refused to follow through with plans to rematch him in a boxing match – labelling the veteran sport pioneer, a “coward”.
Toney, who ended his professional boxing career back in May 2017 with a knockout win over Mike Sheppard, ended his decorated career boasting a 77-10-3(2) record since his debut back in October 1988.
However, the Michigan native made a brief professional mixed martial arts excursion back in August 2010 at UFC 118, suffering an opening round arm-triangle defeat against the aforenoted former three-time undisputed heavyweight, and two-time light heavyweight champion, Couture.
James Toney suffered a one-sided loss to Randy Couture, eventually submitting to an arm-triangle
Recently, however, Toney has since hit out at Couture – claiming the Washington native eventually baulked at a trip to the professional boxing ring for a rematch, despite initially agreeing to the deal.
“I knew he (Randy Couture) was scared when the fight was made,” James Toney told Murder Master Music Show during a recent interview. “Randy is a great fighter in MMA. We had made a deal that we do one fight (in) MMA and one fight (in) boxing. But of course, after he (Randy Couture) beat me, he retires. What kind of sh*t is that?”
“That’s a coward move, I lost a lot of respect for him” James Toney continued. “He retired a week later. The bad thing about it is I made more money than he did. I offered to pay him more money for the boxing (match) than he made with the fight with me (in mixed martial arts).”
Despite claims from Toney that Couture had retired a week after his arm-triangle loss to the former two-weight UFC champion, Couture would go on to feature against former light heavyweight champion, Lyoto Machida in April of the following year – suffering an infamous second round front kick knockout to the Brazilian, announcing his retirement from the sport following the fight, aged 47-years-old.
