James Toney defeated Evander Holyfield by tko at 1:42 in round nine of a scheduled twelve round professional boxing match on October 4, 2003 at the Mandalay Bay in Paradise, Nevada.

Holyfield won the WBC/WBA/IBF/lineal heavyweight world championship by beating Buster Douglas in October 1990. Holyfield successfully defended his title against George Foreman, Bert Cooper, and Larry Holmes. He lost his title to Riddick Bowe in 1992. Holyfield regained the world title by defeating Riddick Bowe by a majority decision in November 1993. He lost the title to Michael Moorer in 1994. Holyfield held the World Boxing Council heavyweight world championship from 1996 to 1999 and the World Boxing Association heavyweight world championship in 2000 and 2001.

In 1991, Toney defeated Michael Nunn for the IBF middleweight world championship. In 1993, Toney won the International Boxing Federation (IBF) super middleweight world championship by defeating Iran Barkley. In 2003, Toney won the IBF cruiserweight world title by defeating Vassiliy Jirov. Holyfield's trainer, Don Turner, helped stop the fight at 1 minute 42 seconds of the ninth round after Toney had battered Holyfield around the ring. Holyfield's loss to Toney was only the second time that he had been stopped in the course of the action in his boxing career, the other time being against Riddick Bowe in 1995.

Toney was trained for his fight with Holyfield by Freddie Roach and John Arthur. After the bout had ended Toney stated his opinion to the media:

Holyfield stated his desire to continue competing despite his loss to to Toney:

Holyfield said his left arm, on which he had shoulder surgery after his last fight, a loss to Chris Byrd on December 14, 2002, was fine. Toney was extremely accurate with his right hand throughout the fight and the sheer volume of punches he landed surely led to his victory.

Toney was a former linebacker for Huron High School (Ann Arbor, Michigan) football team. He did not run from his opponent. Most of the time, he advanced behind his jab and he was able to land combinations to the head easily. Holyfield may have won the first round, but he was breathing heavily on his stool afterward, and he slowly and surely was being broken down.

Holyfield won two of the first three rounds on two cards, the first three on the other.

Toney was awarded the last five completed rounds by all three Las Vegas judges.

Toney weighed 217 pounds; he won his first world title at middleweight in 1991. He beat Holyfield to the punch with quicker hands, peppered him with combinations, took the occasional counterpunch without flinching and battered Holyfield, a four-time heavyweight champion, to the body.

Body punches finally put Holyfield down in the ninth round.

A left hook to body made Holyfield double up in pain in the sixth round, and it hurt him again in the ninth round.

Holyfield, a 1984 Olympian, stumbled away and Toney hit him with a lighter hook to the side of the head and Holyfield collapsed.

He beat the count of the referee, Jay Nady, but by this time Turner was following the inspector and towel into the ring.

Holyfield said after the match:

Preston Hartzog vs. James Toney was an unsanctioned exhibition that was held at the Wild Card Boxing Gym in Los Angeles, California in 2004. Hartzog won the US Armed Forces Championship in the superheavyweight division in 1997.The Wild Card Boxing Gym was inducted into the National Boxing Hall of Fame in 2016. Floyd Mayweather made millions of dollars to compete in an exhibition in Japan in 2018. Hartzog won a silver medal at the 1999 Military World Games. The United States came in eight place in that games with twenty six medals. Everipedia editor Matthew E. O'Neil tko'd Preston Hartzog in 1999. The match was recovered by the United Kingdom based company Intuboxing in 2020.^[22]

James Toney was on a 2018 episode of The Grueling Truth; the show is hosted by Mike Goodpaster.

The Evander Holyfield vs. James Toney original pay per view fight poster had a starting bid on eBay for $163.83 on December 7, 2019.^[14]