Many MMA fans scoffed when UFC President Dana White announced that he had signed 41-year old boxing champion James Toney to a contract and further guffawed when the promotion announced that Toney's first bout would be against UFC Hall of Famer Randy "The Natural" Couture at UFC 118 in late-August.

Now it appears as though White's true motive for the signing and the fight have been revealed, through a recent quote to MMA Weekly;

"We're going to make an example of James Toney. James Toney's been an accomplished fighter for many years, and he's training in mixed martial arts now. James Toney's a real fighter. Listen, James and I go back and forth, and he's mad at me right now, and he's going to be even more pissed off after what I just said. The reality is, I am not so delusional that I don't think anything can happen when two big guys get in there and start throwing punches. He's going to try to knock out Randy Couture that night. It's become this whole UFC vs. boxing thing. I said it before, and I'll say it again, always yapping about people who do ‘freak shows,’ I'm doing one."

Toney gained a contract with the UFC primarily on the strength of his boxing resume as well as his dogged pursuit of the UFC that included months of trash-talk and Toney appearing at various UFC events to call out fighters, the promotion and White himself.

"Lights Out" has had roughly six months of traning with Juanito Ibarra, who formerly coached ex-UFC champ Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, but one would have to think that the example that White is referring to would involve Couture taking Toney down and pounding him into the canvas.

Can Toney manage to land a haymaker to dim the running lights on "The Natural" or will Couture ground and pound his way to an exclamation point on the UFC vs. boxing debate once and for all?