Who has the best most impressive win over Hopkins

It might not be the most popular answer,but that fight was essentialy to settle who was the best in the world between 160 and 175. It left Calzaghe a two division Ring Champion, and the winner was always going to go high in the p4p rakings.

 

I was impressed with the Calzage win, I thought he had B-Hop faking a foul to gain rest a few times and it was obvious there was no low blow and this is usually an indication of being hurt like Manny Stewart pointed out. The Jones win was dominant but it was not the well-groomed-and less drained Hopkins, remember B-Hop still had some good wins after Calzage, so I think this was a good win for Joe

Taylor out hustled him but for me Hopkins was drained at 160 and improved at 175 so Calzage had the most impressive win and I had JC ahead by a nice margin

 

Jones than Dawson.

 

Any of these fine posters fancy re-scoring this fight, and telling me where I'm going wrong?

I just cannot fathom how any serious observer can score the fight for Calzaghe, he just was not landing punches at all for the vast majority of the fight.

If anyone can be bothered doing this, please consider the notes and verdicts below, and get back to me. :good


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1.....hopkins 10, calzaghe 8

H scores KD, and lands next best punch of round with another right hand similar to the KD punch not long after


2.....hopkins 10, calzaghe 9

could've been a 10-10, wouldn't argue with anyone who saw it that way, C forced action, H got off first a few times


3.....hopkins 10, calzaghe 9

competitive, but a hopkins round. H does cleaner work on inside, and lands couple of right hands


4.....hopkins 10, calzaghe 10

could be a hopkins round, but settled on a draw. H lands a good straight right, but not enough in this one to give it to either


5.....hopkins 10, calzaghe 10

very even round.


6.....hopkins 10, calzaghe 9

first good punch landed by calzaghe comes in round 6! A good left hand at 2.12. But H comes back with a good right to the body then lovely right hand off the ropes. H lands better punches, smothers C's attacks, C misses with a few flurries of punches


7.....hopkins 10, calzaghe 9

H lands good left at 1.26. C comes forward a lot, his jab is not effective, punches don't land. H staggers C with hard punch after C's flurry misses at end of round


8.....hopkins 9, calzaghe 10

C lands nice left on 1.19. H fires back with straight right. Another H straight right at 2.13. close round but C edges it as his jab is better this round


9.....hopkins 9, calzaghe 10

C good short left at 0.40, H comes back with right hand. same as last round, could be a 10-10 but C just does a bit more here


10....hopkins 10, calzaghe 9

a clear H round. H nice straight right at 1.00, again at 1.24. despite C's aggression and output it is H that lands all the best shots


11....hopkins 9, calzaghe 10

C gets more punches in, although neither man lands many cleanly


12....hopkins 10, calzaghe 10

even. both flurry, no advantage gained



total..........hopkins 117, calzaghe 113

 

Were that but his record. Nice fairy taie, tho.

I had Calzaghe winning going away, as did all at ringside commentating on the fight, even fan boy Kellerman.

 

All I can do is go by my own cards. :good

I'm not so interested in Max Kellerman's opinion on anything. Nor anyone at ringside. Plenty, plenty people scored it for Hopkins too. Plenty. What does "going away" mean?

 

Probably the Jones win. B-Hop wasn't compromised by issues like age or struggling to make weight, and it was a dominant win instead of just winning on volume and such.

 

Jones easily. Everybody keeps saying how green Hopkins was, but if you take into account that he started boxing already in jail (and got some achievements there) it doesn't look that bad.

The other losses are against past prime Hopkins, close/questionable, or far away from Hopkins natural weight (or any combination of the above).

 

Calzaghe v Hopkins

1: 8-10
2: 9-10
3: 9-10
4: 9-10
5: 10-9
6: 10-9
7: 10-9
8: 9-10
9: 10-9
10: 10-9
11: 10-9
12: 10-9

114-113

I've scored this fight thrice now and twice in favour of Joe both times I watched it on tv and the one time i scored for nard I watched it on youtube. I'm not watching it again so I'm just gonna stick with this scoreecard for now.

A whole lot of joe's punches were bull****, but I think his straight lefts were landed more often then hopkins rights down the stretch. In the 10th and 11th Hopkins straight pissed me off with his faking **** and I would say that's how he threw the fight away; he literally just conceeded 2 rounds when he was comfortably ahead at that point. The pace was getting to him and maybe had he not done that joe could have got him in trouble.

I know there's only 1 round in deciding who the winner is here but I'm sticking with it for now.

Despite wasting large parts of his career, Joe was a heck of a fighter and I think ultimately he did prove his skills at the highest level available vs lacy, kessler and hopkins.

 

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maybe I am falling into that trap, but I'll happily fall cos he pissed me off.

I said maybe, it's hard to tell because Hopkins got the breather.

Irrelevant. the point is he proved himself against the two best SMW rivals and then against the (imo) best LHW in the world. his level is his level. the only thing that makes JoeC great is his domination of the SMW division down the stretch. Had he fought in any other division I'm not sure how his career would have panned out.

 

Going away means that by the 9th or 10th round (I forget which. Hopkins stalled out so long with that faked low blow and ruined the continuity of the fight) both Kellerman and Steward admitted that was no longer even that close and Hopkins needed to put him down again.

 

Conteh's many decisive ESB fantasy fight victories surely deserve mention?

 

Don't take scoring that serious then? Fair enough man.

Not hard to tell at all I wouldn't think, not for people who've watched Hopkins and Calzaghe their whole careers.

Er, not really. Joe Calzaghe was smw champ 97-06, Sven Ottke was smw champ 98-04. They reigned concurrently for 6 years, and both were making defences in Europe. Ottke was more of a rival than Lacy was, and Ottke has a better smw record than Lacy does. IMO, Ottke would've beaten Lacy as well. Calzaghe never fought the guy who was his main rival for the majority of his title reign.

Yes, but you've admitted basing your scoring of the fight on the basis of a dissatisfaction/reaction to Hopkins's unsavoury tactics, so you must secretly question the value of that win yourself, considering an objective reversal of the round in question would reverse the verdict of the fight by your card.

Not sure taking 9 years to unify a division constitutes 'domination' of a weight class. Calzaghe never held all 4 titles at the same time, and so never defended the undisputed title. He didn't fight a number of the top smw's of his era either. You have to give him credit for eventually unifying, but he didn't dominate the weight class the way Hopkins did at mw when he reigned as unified champion, making numerous defences of all 4 major straps. Does unifying a weak weight class by beating less than stellar champions make you a great? Not unless you have pretty low standards for greatness, IMO. I consider Calzaghe a 'very good'. To be a great, he'd really need to have some more genuine quality wins, like Kessler was. One is not enough.

 

I have no idea why anyone would place so much stock in the words of Max Kellerman and Manny Steward during a live telecast. If you watch HBO coverage often, you'll see that Kellerman is a moron and that Steward is excitable and makes wild, sweeping statements all the time.