Why do people underrate Calzaghe on here?

His resume of bums and senior citizens is pathetic

And ESB overrates him

 

His lack of punching power, not facing quality opponents, only stepping up just before he retired. He cheated all the fans out of judging him properly because he never pursued the big fights in his prime, he beat some past it legends and retired. I think people overate him, I think Ward has already surpassed his achievements at super middle and should be rated higher all time.

 

Probably numerous reasons. There will be some that hate him simply because he's British, some that hate him simply because he's white, some that hate him because he rarely challenged himself and fought mostly B and C Level opponents, some who hate him because he beat Hopkins and Jones, some who hate him because of a few vocal fans who overrate him, and so on.

The simple truth of the matter is that he falls inbetween both those who overrate and those underrate him. His skills were clearly better than the average world-level fighter and bordering on elite-level but his resume is too thin to say he was an All Time Great.

 

Ward has not already surpassed Calzaghe's achievements. Ward has only held the WBA, WBC and The Ring Super Middleweight Titles, Calzaghe held the WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO and The Ring Super Middleweight Titles and The Ring Light Heavyweight Title. Calzaghe had 21 successful defenses of his title(s), Ward currently has only 5 successful defenses.

Similarly, Ward's level of opposition has not been better than Calzaghe. Froch rates better than 2/3 years-past-prime Eubank, Kessler and Bika were not better wins for Ward than they were for Calzaghe, Hopkins is a better win for Calzaghe than Dawson is for Ward, and beyond that Calzaghe's list of Ried, Woodhall, Sheika, Mitchell, Brewer, Veit, Starie, Lacy and the shot Roy Jones is stronger list of B level fighters than Ward's list of Green, Miranda, Camou, Ravelo and Buchanan.

Ward has the potential to surpass Calzaghe's achievement but right now he has not.

 

I can't agree with you there, Ward was far more dominant against Kessler than Calzaghe was and Calzaghe beating Hopkins is debatable. Dawson was never even in the fight against Ward and I don't think the weight was as big a factor as people make out. Froch is better than anyone else Calzaghe beat, Miranda, Green and Abraham are at least the equivalent of the other names on Calzaghe's list.
So their resume's are comparable, and Ward has been more dominant against his opposition. Ward also has that olympic gold in his back pocket which always means something when looking back at a fighter, plus he earned that during a period where the US couldn't/can't win anything on the olympic scene.

 

He was never in the class of elite level boxers. He proved that when he fought an old past prime Hopkins.

 

Underrate?

There is a pocket of 15-20 posters who think Calzaghe is literally the GOAT.

He is loudly overrated by moronic brittards on ESB.

 

Another thread about the irrelevant Calzaghe getting replies funny old world.

 

The reason why Calzaghe threads regularly get 10+ pages is not because of Calzaghe fans, who tend to avoid these kind of troll hate threads. These threads get so many pages because of the hardcore Calzaghe haters, posters who cannot stay away from a Calzaghe thread without going in to type up nonsense. Why does Joe attract so much attention? I'm not sure. I don't think it's a nationality thing like these guys make out:

This post from Bogotazo is a very good post, from an American so I don't think they hate Calzaghe because he is British.

It's strange, but you can guarantee the following will appear in just about every Calzaghe thread, they can't seem to stop talking about him:

dinovelvet
Slyk
Slothrop
Scar
general zod
PrinceN
Imperial1


And a number of others I can't remember off the top of my head, these guys have a weird fascination with Joe.

Anyways, on topic, Joe's resume lacks the depth for him to be labelled an ATG , and that's his own fault. However, in his biggest fights against Eubank, Lacy, Kessler and Hopkins, he showed his ability and proved he was a great fighter.

 

This is what I like to see, two good posters having a good debate.

I think it's very close, and Andre has definitely accomplished more at 29 than what Joe did. Overall, it's tough to call.

But you can't count his fights against Roy and Hop because they were at 175.

This is always going to create controversy though, because on paper, Joe's stats will look more impressive. For example, Joe as you've mentioned, has 21 defences, where as Andre's only got 5.

Andre in my opinion will never get anywhere near that number. Why? Because he'll have moved up to 175 by then. You've got to allow for circumstances. I don't want to take a swipe at Joe, but he waited 10 years to unify, and the division was weak for the majority of the time that he was there. So his 21 defences will out do most people's 168 resume.

Then you have to take into consideration how Joe unified. He unified by beating Kessler. But you have to assess a few things like the following:

1. How did Kessler obtain his two belts?

2. Who had he beaten?

3. How good was/is he?

Was Joe's victory over Kessler, a bigger achievement than Andre winning the Super Six?

It's open to debate.

If Andre faces the winner of Kessler vs Froch, wins comfortably, then moves up to 175, will he have surpassed Joe's 168 achievements? Again, Joe's stats on paper will always surpass Andre's.

I love these debates.

I hope you have a great Easter weekend mate.

 

Hopkins is a better win for Calzaghe because he went up to Hopkins weight division to challenge the man thought the best fighter in that division while Dawson went down to Ward's weight. It's a good win for Ward, I dont deny that, but is would have been a better one that rated much higher if he had been the one moving to an entirely new weight division to do it. Its not a debatable win because its there in black and white. The record says Calzaghe beat Hopkins. It was a close fight against an elite fighter who was regarded as the best Light Heavyweight in world, one of the best ever in that division, but Calzaghe got the nod. It can be argued that Hopkins might have deserved to win, that it should have been a draw or that Calzaghe winning was the right decision, but none of that will change the fact that Calzaghe moved up a division to take on the fighter thought the best in that division and came away with the win.

Ward's style is completely wrong for Kessler, while Calzaghe's was a better match up for him, and, as we're constantly told, styles makes fights. Pointing to the more one-sided nature of Ward/Kessler can only be one part of the argument and that's the part focused on the fighting style of the people involved. While Ward could spoil and disrupt Kessler from the get-go and shut him down, Calzaghe had to adapt and find a way to win because he wasn't a spoiler type, he was a high-out-put pressure-puncher. This meant Calzaghe/Kessler was going to be a more open and fast-paced affair than Ward/Kessler. Furthermore Kessler was in his physical prime when he fought Calzaghe and coming into that fight as an undefeated fighter with 30+ fights to his name and having beaten some of the top Super Middleweights in the world on route to that fight, against Ward he was three fights removed from losing to Calzaghe and fought nothing but bums since. He rebounded after losing to Ward to beat Froch but he had far more momentum and was a much more confident fighter when he squared off against Calzaghe than he was against Ward. Thus Calzaghe win over Kessler is every bit as good as Ward's win over Kessler if not better.

As for Froch, he's not better than any fighter Calzaghe beat. I can say this definitively because Froch lost to a fighter Calzaghe beat - Kessler. Additionally, Eubank was still a bloody tough fighter in 1998 and was capable of pushing Calzaghe and going life-or-death with a world champion from two weight division higher. He might have been 2/3 years out of his prime but if that version of Eubank had fought the version of Froch that Ward beat I would still be willing to bet that Eubank would make a close fight of it. Froch would win simply because he was closer to his prime - which is why I rate Ward's win over him ahead of Calzaghe's win over Eubank - but Froch was not noticably a superior fighter to the 1998 version of Eubank.

As far as the Olympic Gold Medal, I dont think amatuer careers should be taken into consideration when judging fighters professional career. Audley Harrison was an Olympic Gold Medalist and he's never got past domestic level. How many Olympic Gold Medalist actully get to a position where they can be considered elite fighters in the Pro? The pros are a different game entirely from the amatuers.

And, yeah, Green, Camou, Ravelo, Miranda, Abraham, etc are a similar level ro Reid, Woodhall, Lacy, Mitchell, Viet, etc, but Calzaghe has a greater depth of that level of fighter on his resume making it stronger currently than Wards. Additionally, I would pick the 2008 version of Roy Jones to beat any of that level of fighter making at least a B+level of fighter and superior to the the rest of that level of fighter on either man's list.

Finally, the fact remains that on paper Calzaghe's accomplishment remain greater than Ward's. Calzaghe being former WBO, WBA, WBC, IBF and the Ring Super Middleweight and the Ring Light Heavyweight champion with 21 successful defenses of the Super Middleweight Titles and an additional defense of the Light Heavyweight title, while Ward being WBA, WBC and the Ring Super Middleweight Champion with 5 successful defenses.

 

I compare Calzaghe/Hopkins to Ward/Dawson because they are fights in similiar circumstances. The man considered the best Light Heavyweight in the world fighting the man considered the best Super Middleweight in the world, one man moving from one division to the other to do it, giving up homefield advantage to the other man. It's just that Calzaghe was the one in his fight giving up his advantages by moving up from the weight he was the established King in and going to a venue of Hopkins' chosing while Ward gave up nothing in his fight when he brought Dawson down to his weight and to a venue of his choosing in Oakland. Calzaghe risked more, gave up more, to fight Hopkins than Ward did to fight Dawson so I cant rate Ward's win over Dawson as superior to Calzaghe's win over Hopkins - no matter how close the Calzaghe/Hopkins fight was.

I agree that it's unlikely that Ward will get near to 21 defenses of a Super Middleweight Title, but he can surpass that statistic another way by moving up to Light Heavyweight and unifying that division, or at least clearing it of potential opposition, and he could concievably move up to Cruiserweight and do that same there, he might even end up in the Heavyweight if he really wants to test himself. He doesn't have to surpass that number of defenses to surpass Calzaghe on all time lists but as long as he's hanging around the Super Middleweight division it will be a relevant statistic.

On Kessler, as I said in my last post, he had much more momentum and was much more confident ahead of his fight with Calzaghe than he was against Ward. He'd come into his fight against Calzaghe having beaten world contender level Andrade and former World Champions Mundine, Siaca, Lucas and Beyer. Heading into his fight with Ward he'd fought Sartison, Haussler and Perdomo who, with the best will in the world, were nobodies or a similar standing to either Pudwill fought by Calzaghe or Ward.

If Ward beats Kessler or Froch again it'd be hard for me to say his resume wasn't superior to Calzaghe's - it might just tip the scales in his favor. I'd still think, however, that Calzaghe would be a match for Ward as far as his skills and talent was concerned, just that, because of his own lack of ambition, that wouldn't be reflected in his resume.

Thus I reserve the right to say that Calzaghe would have given Ward the toughest fight he'd ever had, and say that a hypothetical match up between the two in at their best as we can consider it now would be close, perhaps too close to call.

 

great fighter - would be worshiped on here if he was American.

also if he was american he would have been top 10 p4p for 6-7 years.

 

MAJR,

I agree with all of the above, but I thought you were just debating 168 resumes? Dealt with said that in his opinion, Andre had surpassed Joe's accomplishments at 168.

I agree, you've made some good points. If he went onto achieve the above, then you'd have to say that he'd eclipse Joe overall. But Joe's 168 stats would still get thrown around, and this is why it creates such a great debate. Again, lets say that Andre did all of the above and even fought at heavy. Would you then say after he'd retired, that although he'd had a better career overall, Joe was still a better 168 fighter? Is that what you'd say?

I'm not saying you'd be wrong, because nobody is right or wrong, it's all about opinions.

If the above happened, would you say Joe was still a better fighter in your opinion, and you think Joe would have beaten him face to face had they met?

If anyone asked me who I thought the greatest ever 168 fighter was, I'd say Roy without thinking. Again I'm not right, and it's just my opinion. He only had about 7 fights at the weight, and Joe obviously achieved much much more. But I'd pick Roy, because I don't think anyone could have beaten him at that weight. I've no problem with people picking Joe though, and I understand why. Again, it's all subjective.

When I compare two fighters, I look at who they both fought, at what point, and look at the circumstances involved. I then do a head to head breakdown of strengths and weaknesses, and then envisage them both in a fight.

There's nothing better than having an intelligent debate, and going back and forth with a poster such as yourself.

Bert Sugar once said that Joe Louis was the greatest Heavy of all time. He said it on ESPN in front of Larry Holmes. Larry said that in his opinion, Ali at his peak would have beaten Louis, therefore Ali had to be number 1 on Bert's list. But Bert said "No, that doesn't matter, in my opinion Louis was more dominant in his era, so he's my number 1 heavy of all time." Larry looked bemused sat next to him, and so did I watching at home.

But it just shows you the different angles that people look from.

I know you'd favour Roy to have beaten Joe prime for prime, and I know that if I said to you "Roy's the greatest 168 fighter ever" you'd say "No he isn't!"

If I then said "Yeah but Roy would have beaten him!" You'd probably say "it doesn't matter, because...."

Someone told me last week that Manny was better than Roy, because he'd won more titles in more weight classes. I said "Yeah, but Roy's bigger, so Manny's had the OPPORTUNITY to do that." Roy was only physically capable of winning titles in 5 weight classes.

I can see you're reasoning.

Overall, or just at 168?

If you had a gun to your head, who would you pick to win?

Great debate.

 

Troll-baiting aside, there often isn't that much difference between how so-called fanboys and haters rate him.

You have to acknowledge and respect his ability and achievements. On the other hand, when gauging him against ATGs there is a sense of unfulfillment, and an undefeated record is only as good as the fighters you beat.