On March 18, 2006, Uatu crawled "out of mother's basement" and took in the Rahman - Toney fight live in Atlantic City. The fight would end up a draw, with one judge scoring the fight 117-111 for Rahman. Uatu did not score the fight round-by-round, but going on the overall-impression standard, he thought that Rahman won. Of course, that is not how fights are actually judged and in person the fight looked close.
For big fights where weight is an issue, Uatu will wait until the weigh-in to make a prediction. With these two particular fighters who have fluctuated in weight, it seems like the prudent thing to do again. Boxrec.com had Toney's weight for the first fight at 237 and Rahman at 238.
Over on the Scale Watch on fightnews.com, the listed weights for tomorrow's fight are Toney 226 and Rahman 244. Wow. Many fighters have said ,"I'm in the best shape of my life" etc, but Toney looks to really be living it.
James is now 39 years of age, which could be a factor. One wonders if there is a thing as losing too much weight for an older fighter, looking at what happened with Chris Byrd not too long ago. Rahman is 35 years old himself, which isn't as old for a heavyweight as it is for the smaller fighters.
Toney hasn't fought since May of '07, and Rahman November of '07. That's a long layoff for Toney, but at his age, that might very well be a plus.
Well, over the last five to ten years, Uatu has held Toney's skills to be among the very best with Floyd Mayweather, Bernard Hopkins, and Juan Manuel Marquez out of the big names. Watching Toney slip and roll and counter is super-impressive. Knocking Rahman out is not likely, so Uatu will take Toney by decision, based on the combination of Toney's weight and skills and the close draw in the first fight. Hopefully the fight will be exciting as either fighter with a big win tomorrow will most likely get another big fight.
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