James “Lights Out” Toney is back, though he never really went anywhere.
He was always just a phone call away, a guy ready to fight anybody, waiting for the right opportunity to prove that at 32 or 33, your boxing life doesn’t end. It just smoothes out, sweetens and becomes a little more in focus.

Who opened the door and let the old man sneak in and sit down, find a seat in the front? High standards were supposed to be maintained, competition was to be of the highest degree.  Not everyone is welcome. So how’d Mercer get in?
Diligence, maybe. Diligence and a chin harder than a Brooklyn sidewalk. He’s never been stopped in 35 fights, which - for a heavyweight with his past record - is like saying you never shot over par, or you never missed a free throw.
And it’s not like Mercer’s been booking rounds with the pretenders of the fight game.  He went 12 rounds with Larry Holmes back when Holmes still counted for something. And he went ten - the distance - with both Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, a lot of guys saying he even beat Lewis.