James Toney is fighting on Friday Night Fights again this week. That is always good news. Toney is a pleasure for a boxing purist to watch. He is as skilled as any fighter in the game. But not as disciplined. And therein lies the rub with Toney.

In the last several years he has started getting his weight under control, coming into fights usually within five or six pounds of the cruiserweight limit of 190. Still, that extra five pounds he carries is an indicator of his underachieving. He tantalizes us with his potential -- after all of his many title fights and even his entire career since 1994 when he lost to Roy Jones -- James Toney is still a relatively young fighter (he is in his early-30s). With all his talent, skill, experience, toughness, and with all the time it seems he could still have left, it is not inconceivable that he could still achieve real greatness.

Yet every time we see him it is the same thing. He puts on a clinic and usually dismantles (or at least outpoints) his top-20 or top-30 type opponent, but his performance stops short of creating real demand to see him against a top opponent.

With the exception of the sometimes heavyweight Juan Carlos Gomez, Vasily Jirov has been the most consistent of all the top 190-pounders. There is no Ring Magazine champion at 190, but with the absence of Gomez it is safe to say that Jirov is building a consensus that he is the man to beat at the weight. He is an Olympic gold medalist and undefeated professional belt holder who has won nearly all of his fights by knockout. He is a vicious body puncher who likes nothing better than an opponent who stands still. James Toney likes nothing more than an opponent who comes to him. It would be a fight of year candidate.

But it will not happen if Toney does not create demand for it by stepping up the intensity of his performances against the lesser lights of the division. Michael Rush is a typical Toney opponent of recent years -- he is not a world beater, but he can handle himself well enough to make Toney look less than sensational. And that will leave Toney in the exact same position he now finds himself -- seemingly one fight away from a return to the big time, but in reality probably returning for another go at another Michael Rush level opponent on Friday Night Fights.

Meanwhile in three of the last four weeks on FNF we have seen the "opponent" in our main event either win or come close to it. First it was supposedly light hitting Juan Valenzuela knocking out supposedly solid-chinned Julio Diaz in the first (!) round. Then it was Oscar Larios as a late substitute pitted against Israel Vasquez in a rematch of a fight in which Larios had been knocked out in one round in 1997. Larios stopped Vasquez in the last round of a thrilling affair. This last week Angel Vasquez was extended the distance in a close fight against "opponent" Marcos Licona.

James Toney beware: not only will less-than-spectacular not cut it in terms of returning yourself to elite status, the way things have been going on our air recently, it might not even be enough to win the fight.

Max Kellerman is a studio analyst for ESPN2's Friday Night Fights.