Columnist Dean Juipe: McCline plans to use insults against Toney

Dean Juipe

Thursday, Jan. 8, 2004 | 9:56 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Relentlessly and in somewhat poor taste, James Toney sniped at Jameel McCline for almost two full hours at a Tuesday press conference, belittling his Feb. 7 opponent at every opportunity.

Think of any insulting, vulgar term that comes to mind and Toney was likely to have directed it toward McCline, who took the abuse with a smile and a pleasant facade.

"It doesn't affect me," McCline said later. "What it does is motive me even more."

McCline vs. Toney headlines a Mandalay Bay card that will be televised by Showtime as part of a unique doubleheader. An hour of the show will be filled by a fight between undisputed junior welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu vs. Sharmba Mitchell in Moscow, while the other hour will match a very big heavyweight against a former middleweight world champion.

McCline, 30-3-3 with 18 knockouts, stands 6-foot-6 and weighs 270 pounds.

Toney, 67-4-2 with 43 KOs, is 5-foot-11 and 220.

They're scheduled for 12 rounds in a fight that will elevate the winner to the mandatory challenger's position to International Boxing Federation heavyweight champion Chris Byrd.

Toney is a minus 240 in the sports book at Mandalay Bay and McCline is a plus 190. Each man is being paid almost $500,000 for the fight.

Both appeared at a press conference in Las Vegas to formally announce the fight and kick off ticket sales, which are priced from $45 to $500.

"I see the fear in his eyes," Toney said in one of his more civil remarks. "He's a mummy, a crybaby, a sissy.

"I'm a real fighter. I'm the most dangerous fighter in the world."

Toney is on a nice roll, having won 13 consecutive fights spread over six years. He upset IBF cruiserweight champion Vassiliy Jirov last April and punctuated his move to heavyweight by overwhelming Evander Holyfield in nine rounds Oct. 4 at Mandalay Bay.

McCline, meanwhile, is trying to piece his career back together after a disappointing loss to Wladimir Klitschko 13 months ago in Las Vegas. He has since defeated Charles Shufford and Cedric Boswell, both by knockout.

Of course, piecing a career back together pales in comparison to piecing a life back together, which McCline was forced to do after a five-year prison stint that concluded in 1995. An orphan who grew up in Harlem, N.Y., he was convicted in 1989 of transporting and selling stolen guns.

He was incarcerated at various sites, including Sing Sing, Attica and Comstack, and he also spent 14 months in solitary confinement.

"After five years in prison, I'm not afraid of anyone," McCline said. "I've never been one to back down to anyone talking (like Toney did) to me."

He cited a specific incident in prison in which he overheard a noted tough guy making a derogatory remark toward him.

"I sat there for about four minutes, debating, shaking," he said. "I told myself, 'I've got to say something to this man.' And finally, I did. I told him, 'Never say that to me again.' And he said, 'OK.' "

The inference is clear: McCline, by his very physical stature and strength of character, turned a bully into a harmless colleague. Which, not coincidentally, is what he intends to do with Toney.

"I'm fighting a future Hall of Famer who has more wins than I have fights," he said, respectfully. "But my style is going to be too difficult for him to deal with.

"What have I got to be afraid of? I'm getting paid a lot of money to fight. When I was on the streets doing crazy things, I was afraid then."

McCline took up boxing after his release from prison and inauspiciously opened his pro career with two losses and a draw in his first five fights. But he didn't lose again until running into Klitschko, defeating a few noted contenders -- King Ipitan, Al Cole, Michael Grant, Lance Whitaker and Shannon Briggs -- along the way.

"He's right, I shouldn't have lost that fight," McCline said of Toney mocking him for the loss to Klitschko. "But that was an aberration. I hit a low road, I know that. And if that's how I'm going to be labeled, I'll sleep in that bed.

"But it's a mistake to get a barometer on me from that fight."

He said he'll use his mental and physical advantages and "fight large" against Toney.

"I'm an astute student of boxing and I'm a whole lot more intelligent than he is," McCline said. "There were times when I had to sit in solitary confinement, days and days with no lights and the only way you'd know it was another day was when they brought you a meal.

"There's no way this man can intimidate me."

Former heavyweight champion Michael Dokes of Las Vegas, who has been incarcerated in the prison at Indian Springs for the past four years on an assault charge, was denied parole in a recent hearing. ... The wife of the late heavyweight Brad Rone, a Las Vegan who collapsed and died in the first round of a July 18 fight with Billy Zumbrun in Cedar City, Utah, has retained an attorney and there is reason to believe a lawsuit will be filed on her behalf against the State of Utah. The state has yet to release its autopsy findings beyond saying the death was the result of a heart attack. Rone, who had high blood pressure, was allowed to fight despite a poor record and what may have been numerous medically-related inadequacies ringside the night of the fight.