Don King used to say of Muhammad Ali that people would rather listen to Ali talk about fighting than watch other boxers actually fight. Every time I hear James Toney talk smack before a bout I think the same thing.

	Evander Holyfield lost his last fight to Chris Byrd in December.

The guy exudes such confidence and talks such a good game. And he has the resume to back up the boastfulness, with wins over the likes of Mike McCallum, Michael Nunn and Iran Barkley.

Yes, I would rather listen to "Lights Out" than watch several world-class fighters I can think of.

Of course, I would rather watch Evander Holyfield fight than do most anything I can think of. Many other boxing fans feel the same way, which is why Holyfield-Toney can be sold for more than 40 bucks a pop on pay-per-view this weekend.

Evander has given this generation more memorable fights than any two heavyweights combined. Every single opponent no matter how big, powerful or skilled that Holyfield has ever fought has had his hands full. Mike Tyson, Riddick Bowe, Lennox Lewis, George Foreman, Michael Moorer, Ray Mercer etc. No one has ever had an easy time with Evander.

That is except in his very last fight, when the "The Real Deal" dropped a lopsided points decision to Chris Byrd. Holyfield is now nearly 41 years old. Toney is about a decade younger and beat undefeated cruiserweight kingpin Vassily Jirov his last time out. In so doing Toney not only won the best fight of 2003 so far, but also reclaimed a position among boxing's elite -- a position he had lost through years of overeating and under-training.

So as of late, Toney has been better, but Holyfield's natural size advantage is significant. In fact, although Evander has been famously undersized for a modern-day heavyweight he has been fighting at close to 220 pounds for nearly 10 years -- since he was Toney's age.

Toney meanwhile will likely weigh nearly 220 pounds himself when he steps into the ring this upcoming Saturday night, and that is a problem. James looks fat again. One former Toney trainer has told me stories of "Light Out" putting on close to 10 pounds in one night after lights out -- McDonald's wrappers found under his bed.

For this fight, my spies tell me that Toney looks sharper than Holyfield in training. The real question however, going into this matchup may not be the extent to which age has diminished the great Holyfield, but rather the extent to which appetite has diminished James Toney.

Toney is very convincing when he talks, perhaps most of all to himself. If he has in fact talked himself into the idea that fighting at heavyweight means he can eat as he pleases, and come into a matchup with Holyfield truly out of shape, then he will already have lost before he ever enters the ring.

It would be a shame, because were he to beat Evander, the chances are very good that his very next fight would be the rematch he has pined for since losing his 168-pound crown in what seems like at least one boxing era ago. It is quite likely that Roy Jones Jr. would be tempted to finally give Toney a chance at revenge -- this time at cruiserweight instead of super middle.

It is well documented how Roy loves collecting belts, and win or lose to Evander, James will still hold the 190-pound trinket he took from Jirov. For Roy it would mean the chance to conquer yet another weight division. For James it would mean the chance to earn a purse that would approach eight figures.

It will be incredibly disappointing if Toney's appetite outweighs (so to speak) Evander's age, but the guess here is that it does. Toney will come into the fight Saturday night in aesthetically embarrassing shape and yet box with enough savvy and moxie to survive a bruising points loss and live to talk another day.

With his mouth full, I'm sure.

Max Kellerman is a studio analyst for ESPN2's "Friday Night Fights" and the host of the show "Around The Horn."