In case you haven’t heard, UFC President Dana White has been in talks with current heavyweight boxer and future Hall Of Famer James Toney about fighting in the UFC. Toney has actually been floating this idea in the media for years but more recently started showing up to UFCs and getting in Dana White’s ear.

Last year former heavyweight champ Hasim Rahman said he’s now training for MMA. Ricardo Mayorga has a fight lined up against former UFC fighter Din Thomas on March 6 in Florida’s Shine Fights. Kermit Cintron and even Evander Holyfield have also attempted to court the UFC in the media.

As a boxing and MMA fan I’d love to see elite boxers in MMA, and I love James Toney. I worship slickness and defense, and therefore Toney is one of my favorite boxers of this era. Toney is a genius as a boxer. But I just don’t see it working out for him in MMA. He’s changed up his style of boxing a few times in his career and I think he could adapt it for MMA and learn to grapple, but based on his comments in the media he won’t. Toney doesn’t have any respect for MMA, nor any interest in learning the game.

Toney seems to think he can just step into the UFC and win fights. Personally having originally came from MMA, I know how difficult it is to keep the fight standing against a good grappler. No boxer is going to be able to keep the fight standing in the UFC unless they learn to wrestle and to integrate this with their boxing. If Toney gets a few fights he’ll probably score a spectacular KO here or there, but most of the time he’ll immediately end up on his back and then get submitted pronto.

Now that the UFC is generating enough income to supposedly pay 18 fighters 7 figures per year, they should poach some boxers. MMA has a history of skimming top guys from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Wrestling and Kickboxing, and should start recruiting from the top of Boxing. But instead of signing 40 something Hall of Famers like Toney or Holyfield, how about getting a few elite boxers who are closer to 30 and who have the motivation to spend a few years learning the MMA game?

I weighed in Saturday morning at 191 lbs, which is 2 lbs up from before the holidays. Then I went running Saturday and Sunday, 1.5 miles each day with sprints and got in some intense intervals of shadow boxing. I also lifted weights Sunday.

My plan is to sit down with my trainer tonight and talk about training for an upcoming fight. I’m curious what time frame he’s looking for, because I think I need to drop 15 lbs. From here on out all I will worry about is showing up to my boxing club on the designated nights and listening to my trainer.

I hate buying boxing shoes! In 8 years of boxing training I’ve only had one good pair of boxing shoes (a particular model of Asics). Those Asics were my last pair, and I was so happy to have them I wore them into the ground. I literally had toes sticking out! But I continued to wear them until I was afraid I’d twist an ankle because the treads were so worn.

Most boxing shoes have flimsy ankle support, or are too wide or narrow. The new pair purchased 2 weeks ago have soles which are too narrow, so my foot causes the side of the shoe to spill out over the sole onto the ground. I wonder how long until I wear a hole into the side?

This new pair pissed me off because I visited two stores and spent $70. After rejecting the one pair in stock at the local Big 5 Sporting goods store, I tried this pair at a local boxing specialty store. These Everlast brand shoes were the only pair they carried and they seemed ok when I tried them on. In retrospect I should have moved around a bit to better evaluate them… If/when I ever get a good pair I’ll let you guys know the make and model.

Like many Wordpress blogs on the net, my blog was hacked this week. If you use a newsreader I apologize for the pharmaceutical spam ad in the post excerpts.

For the record no viagra is sold here.

First off I want to apologize for my extended absence. I especially wish to apologize to the readers and fellow bloggers that repeatedly encouraged me to restart blogging.

Why have I been gone? I had my first child, a boy, who is the most beautiful, healthy and well-behaved baby that a man could wish for. In this past year I’ve thought a lot about getting back to training and blogging and have had a number of false starts in trying. But I am back for real now.

As part of my return I think it’s appropriate to change my user name and nickname. My life is so different now: I have far less time, I’ve gained weight and I scrounge for gym fees. But I still have the itch, and the only scratch that works is fighting. The Nerd of Steel is dead. My new incarnation is, The Love Machine.

My physical therapy is going well and it’s finally feeling better. I think I’ve said it before but I’m a big fan of physical therapy. I’ve been easing back into my training routine and tomorrow night I’ll be back in the gym with my trainer.

I’m really looking forward to strengthening a weak link in my chain with these ankle exercises. Ankles are so important in boxing. Obviously we work on extending the ankle to raise oneself on our toes, but lateral rotation is really important too. That lateral ankle motion can give you those little explosive steps in any direction.

If you can get to the point in your footwork where one foot is always pushing and the other is always pulling, you’ll be amazed at the increase in “foot speed” and explosivity. One of my trainers pushed me to develop this skill earlier in the year and I’ve been very pleased with the results.

During sparring I twisted my ankle twice over the last 3 weeks. Much to my frustration, this second sprain is healing slower. Instead of moping about my injury I’ve been doing some research on ankle injuries which I’ll post this week.

I’ve spent my time working on tucking my chin and covering with my shoulder on my straight right and developing my overhand right. I’ve also been watching film of great boxers that attacking their opponent then exit at angles where it’s safer (this generally requires your opponent to pivot before following).

Even when injured you can always ask yourself, what drills can I do? What new skill can I spend this extra time on? Even if you’re in a full-body cast you can always watch film…

The gym’s closed and there’s no training to be had today. So I ordered a better mouthpiece, some instructional videos, conditioning books and a pair of trunks from Title Boxing.

Title has a number of 30 min videos on specific areas, only $5 VHS. I order the body punching, counter-punching and fighting with angles videos. I’ll write reviews after I watch them.