Randy Couture climbed into the octagon prepared for UFC 118 and an MMA bout while James Toney looked like he was not. The result was embarrassing for Toney as the current IBA heavyweight boxing champ got his ass handed to him in front of 15,575 screaming MMA fans who packed TD Garden in Boston Saturday night.

Couture, 19-10-0 dug into his arsenal and pulled out as basic move as you will see, performing a single-leg takedown by grabbing Toney’s left ankle and dropping the soft-looking boxer to the floor.

Once on the ground, Couture pounded Toney until eventually applying an arm triangle and choking him out; Toney tapped out at 3:31 of the first round.

Couture commented on the single leg maneuver that is rarely seen in MMA:  “It’s pretty easy to counter. A good grappler or a good wrestler is going to step out of that.”

Toney being neither of those ended up on his back and the rest is history.

It was a smart and expected strategy by Couture. Get the boxer into an unknown element as quick as possible to avoid punching it out. In fact Toney never landed a single punch until he was lying supine fighting from his back and if any of those lame shots landed, so what, the lady packing groceries at the local supermarket could have shrugged them off.

Toney has a boxing record of 72-6-3 and turned out to be a bad representation for boxing in the Boxing vs. MMA debate. Getting dominated in the cage without connecting a blow in front of a sold-out arena and a pay-per-view audience almost closes the debate.

Over the past few months Toney has been telling the world he was capable of knocking Couture out from any position, on his feet or lying on his back. That turned out to be nothing but trash-talk and hype.

Using a few versus from LeBron James’ third person book, in a prefight interview, Toney said, “You will see how James Toney boxes. You will see that James Toney hits hard. You will see why James Toney hardly ever gets hit.”

Toney expected the 5-ounce MMA gloves to make his hands weapons and create damage to Couture but punches need to land for that to happen and they didn’t.

After the fight UFC President Dana White said, “Toney lasted longer than I thought he would.”

Toney’s response to the quick fight was, well, we don’t know but we can assume since the fighter didn’t show up for the post fight presser.

So after this debacle will the Boxing vs. MMA debate continue? Don’t count on it after the boxer known as “Lights Out” was exactly that after lasting less than four minutes in the octagon.

NOTE: A short Randy Couture vs. James Toney video clip can be seen on ESPN here. The fight was over so quick; the few short clips will define the fight for you.

Copyright ©2010 Sports Climax, LLC