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Here's the Cruiserweight version of Vassily Jirov and James Toney. At Cruiserweight, Vassily Jirov fought like a Russian Marciano - with a high work rate, fantastic conditioning, hard punch, and great chin.
Some boxing experts considered him at the time to be the 2nd best Cruiserweight in the history of the division next to Evander Holyfield. Then came his thrilling title defense against James Toney in April of 2003.
It was a great give and take battle with Toney's defense and counterpunching making the difference in the fight.
A late surge by Toney produced the first knockdown in Jirov's career and Toney came close to a stoppage landing tremendous shots in the last two rounds but Jirov just wouldn't break.
As I said in another post, this was the best Cruiserweight fight I had ever seen next to Holyfield - Qawi I.
This marked the beginning of Toney's return to the championship ranks and the end of Jirov as dominant force in the CW division. Vassily then moved up to Heavyweight with less than thrilling results.
Both of these fighter ratings at Cruiserweight have been play tested against each other for accuracy.
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