Toney wanted Lesnar, turned down Slice, settled for Couture
When boxing champion James Toney first signed with the UFC, he didn’t see any reason he shouldn’t get a heavyweight…
When boxing champion James Toney first signed with the UFC, he didn’t see any reason he shouldn’t get a heavyweight title shot. And so, Toney says, he asked for Brock Lesnar as his first opponent inside the Octagon.
But the UFC had other ideas.
According to Toney, when the UFC told him he wasn’t just going to waltz right in and fight the heavyweight champ, that set off an interesting negotiation with the promotion, which floated the idea of having him fight Kimbo Slice before settling on Randy Couture as his first UFC opponent.
“The person I wanted to fight right off the bat was Brock Lesnar,” Toney said in a live chat with MMAFighting.com. “He’s a champion, I’m a champion and I wanted to do it. But they said I couldn’t do that. Then they said, ‘How about Kimbo?’ But I said, ‘That’s too easy. That’s like kicking a little kid’s butt.’ But then Randy started saying he wanted to fight me, so I said, ‘OK, you’re the first one getting it.'”