it's a bit of a catch 22 tho. at the time ottke was more established & much bigger money but calzaghe was considered higher risk. jc couldn't just wake up one morning & say "tonight i will unify the titles". he had a hard time making fights. a lot of guys didn't seem to want to face him when they had something to lose...but when they had nothing to lose & something to gain guys like reid, brewer & mitchell had no problem getting in the ring with him. & i suppose your problem with calzaghe facing tocker pudwill (a last minute replacement for tate) was that he should have done it before ottke struggled past him? :nut
He fought ten years without doing a damn thing to face a real challenge? He is a ducker? He retired rather than challenge himself against the best? Take your pick.
Just because someone doesnt go to the US then it dont mean they arent any good. thats americans "dominated" heavyweight boxing in the past. The soviet union didnt allow fighters like the Klitschkos and when Americans did venture into fighting Europeans a lot of the time they had their asses handed to them even though they were left to cheat or lucky to get a points win with the judges Joe Louis - Tommy Farr. Close fight with Farr losing on points and some say unlucky to lose. Ali - Cooper . If not for the controversial glove splitting and smelling salts then Ali would have lost. so two of your greatest heavyweights nearly lost to these so called "bums" Matthysse/Kotelnik - Alexander/Judah is a more recent example Richie woodhall was not exactly HOF worthy but he did win the WBC super middleweight belt and was good enough to be called a world champion so it was a reasonable title defence. Seriously all this ONLY IN AMERICA crap is one of the things thats hurting boxing, Different Nationalites have different styles and that makes for more interesting and exciting fights with different atmospheres in different venues around the world. Go to a fight in America and its not the same as going to an event in Germany or the Uk
Last time I was in Canada, the minister of culture was whining to CNN how while Canada may look like the US, and try to act like the US, that they were still Canada and not the US. :yep Plus they got the Queens ugly ass head shot on the coin, and before the recession greatly preferred taking US dollars
yes it does. What upcoming boxer would not want to walk in the path of the greats and perform at the same great venues such as; Madison Square Garden, The MGM, ect. Get real! atsch
Well, look at the fights that could have been made: And then look at how terrible Calzaghe's opposition actually was for the vast majority of his career, especially that horrible, horrible run from 1998-2005: This content is protected Reid This content is protected This content is protected Mitchell This content is protected When you only fight a mesasly two good fighters in an entire 7 years of being a champion when there are plenty of good fighters in your division and the surrounding divisions, you are always going to get questioned. Bottom line: His resume blows, and he didn't do enough to get the big fights until it was very, very late in the day. His reign sucked. :deal
He didn't have any problems getting Lacy and Kessler to face him near the end of career thought did he? He in fact took a pay cut to face Lacy had he been more willing to make such financial sacrifices earlier in his career then maybe he would have gotten some better opposition in with him. Don't get me wrong I don't think Calzaghe ducked anyone and he had a promoter who has a long history of over protecting his fighters but he seemed all to happy to be led down this path of least resistance. Hatton forced their promoter to throw him in with Tzsyu instead of lining up another pointless WBU defence, had Calzaghe shown the same will at an earlier point I think he would have been more recognized for his ability at an earlier point in his career. Instead of only achieving the respect so late when he finally decided to step up and make the necessary sacrifices and compromises to make the meaningful fights happen. No problem with facing the odd Pudwill now and again especially when another fighter pulls out but he went through a 2 year period in 2004-2005 when he faced no meaningful opponents. I was a big fan up to that point but just got sick of watching him face nobodies. While he may not have been able to get top opposition in with him at that point he should have at least fought opponents that were contenders of some sort even if only fringe contenders.
At any time 2003-present, at 168 or 175 12 Calzaghe vs Antonio Tarver 13 Calzaghe vs Glen Johnson 14 Calzaghe vs Jermain Taylor 15 Calzaghe vs Winky Wright 16 Calzaghe vs Kelly Pavlik 17 Calzaghe vs Chad Dawson 18 Calzaghe vs Carl Froch 19 Calzaghe vs Tomasz Adamek 20 Calzaghe vs Clinton Woods 21 Calzaghe vs Zsolt Erdei Tarver was a light heavy weight not supermiddle Johnson lost to omar sheika, calzaghe beat sheika Taylor was a middleweight during calzaghe's career when he stepped up a weight calzaghe was facing better opposition winky was a light middleweight He chose hopkins over fights with pavlik or dawson, hopkins was the better opponent adamek, woods erdei were all lhw, when calzaghe moved up he fought the biggest names that would give him the biggest paydays
Haters, most of whom are Yanks, are eaten up inside that they have no Calazghe defeat to zero in on, thus they resort to other desperate tactics in a vain attempt to discredit him. And they also overlook the fact that when JC fought Borenard and Jones, her was just as much past HIS prime as they were theirs.