Post by salman on Oct 10, 2016 7:02:28 GMT 5.5
Toney Freeman: NSL Has Better Judging or Better Money?
by Matt Weik
We all witnessed the departure of “The X-Man” Toney Freeman from the IFBB in early 2016. His sending off party was full of IFBB bashing, finger pointing, and a whole lot of promises of “something better” in where he was going. More specifically, the Nspire Sports League (NSL), run by former Texas NPC chairperson, Lee Thompson, who also had his own beef with the NPC/IFBB in which during his departure filmed videos publicly calling people out.
Fairer judging?
Looking back, I wonder if Toney has any regrets? I’m sure he’s getting paid more now than he was in the IFBB since Lee is using Toney (as well as Erin Stern among others) as headliner athletes. But has Toney really been actively competing in the NSL? Nope. He’s doing seminars/workshops for Lee. I guess being paid to be a headliner and not competing is paying dividends for Toney. What exactly was Toney looking for though in order to come over to NSL? Did he think he would go over to NSL and start taking home 1st place trophies left and right? The headlines lit up when he announced he was leaving the IFBB. Yet there’s really no big press in the industry about anything that he’s doing at NSL. I see some pictures on the NSL Facebook page showing he will compete towards the end of 2016, but that is to be seen.
So was Toney’s leap in order to go to a league that has “fairer” judging, or was he paid enough money to badmouth the IFBB and jump ship to NSL where he could basically retire, hop on stage a time or two each year and collect a paycheck for the NSL using his name and image? While he was known as “The X-Man” in the IFBB, they weren’t using him or his name as a main attraction. He’s no spring chicken anymore and even had some issues with the law. So why would the IFBB want to use him, he wasn’t even winning shows. Sure he was still in great shape for his age, but let’s face it, even with age as a factor, he still couldn’t beat Dexter who’s also up against father time. So Toney had to see the writing on the wall that his career in the IFBB was just about over, especially with the new blood entering the IFBB.
Another thing that raises an eyebrow is that if Toney was so against the IFBB and wanting to break free all the stuff going on then why wouldn’t he change is social media names? On Twitter he is still posting under @ifbbprotfxman. Sure, he has a ton of followers, but changing his name wouldn’t affect anything. He’s even done TBT posts of his days in the IFBB and some of his wins along with talking about how excited he is about upcoming IFBB shows. How confusing.