Toney vs. Peter erupts!!! July 12, 2006
Yesterday, the Palms Restaurant in downtown Los Angeles hosted the initial press conference to announce the September 02nd fight between James “Lights Out” Toney versus Samuel “The Nigerian Nightmare” Peter at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. This fight is a WBC Heavyweight Eliminator with the winner slated to face the winner of the August 12th WBC Championship fight between Hasim Rahman and Oleg Maskaev. Both fighters, Toney and Peter, recently came up just short against two of the current world champions. Last September, Peter faced Wladimir Klitschko in an IBF and WBO elimination match. Despite knocking down Klitschko three times, Peter still suffered a defeat at the hands of the judges. Toney, in his last fight, fought to a draw with WBC champion Hasim “The Rock” Rahman. The fight is appropriately titled “No Risk, No Reward” and this is very fitting as each fighter is taking a huge risk as both would have likely earned title shots within the next few months even without taking taking such a dangerous fight against each other. James Toney’s promoter, Dan Goossen, Goossen-Tutor Promotions, acted as the MC for the press conference. After the standard introductions of those behind the scenes at Showtime and the Staples Center, Goossen then turned over the podium to Sam Peter’s promoter, Dino Duva. “It takes two great warriors to commit to this kind of fight”, Duva said. Duva went on to praise James Toney, calling him one of the best fighters of the last 20 years and spoke very highly of his accomplishments at the Middleweight and Cruiserweight division. However, in a statement that clearly irritated Toney, Duva said, “However, I think James still has something to prove at Heavyweight, and that is why I believe he took this fight.” Duva continued by saying that James Toney is a very smart fighter, one of the smartest around. However, Duva then added that despite Toney’s smarts, “he did a very dumb thing…dumbest thing he has ever done”, by accepting a fight against Samuel Peter. Duva sounded amused at the title of the promotion and said that it would be more aptly named “Not a chance”, summing up Toney’s chances against Peter on September 02nd. Meanwhile, Toney was growing clearly irritated with Duva’s remarks which transformed the press conference from cordial to confrontational. Goossen, in returning to the podium, thanked Duva for his remarks and said that it would do nothing more than add to Toney’s determination. This, he said, made Duva and Peter’s manager, Ivalyo Gotev, “Dumb and Dumber.” It was then Gotev’s turn to lose his cool as he expressed resentment that this was nothing more than the “Goossen and Toney show”, speaking of how the press conference had been controlled by the two of them. He added, “This is Peter’s time”, and pointing to Toney shouting “You are going down!” “No excuses, no excuses” Gotev then shouted at Toney. That was all that was needed to set off Toney’s temper. Toney shouted back to Gotev “You talking like you going to do something.” By then Gotev was standing, pointing and shouting at Toney and Toney had to be restrained by his entire team to keep from getting at Gotev. Meanwhile, Peter remained seated and never lost his cool. After Toney was unable to get to Gotev he then picked up a glass of water and threw it, glass and all, at Gotev. With that, the press conference came to a premature but very eventful end, with Goossen shouting the ticket prices over the surrounding commotion. Tickets are $300, $150, $75 and $50 and Ticketmaster will be auctioning off some true ringside seats, three packages in all.” “No Risk, No Reward” will be broadcast live on Showtime on September at 10PM EST/7PM PST with Al Bernstein and Steve Albert announcing the fight. FightNews will be bringing its readers all of the preflight activities in the days leading up to the fight. |
All contents copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 by Freitag Marketing Services.