Now who wins prime Calzaghe or prime Ward?

Joe struggled with Bernard, and the best version of Andre was better than Bernard.

It would have been an extremely difficult fight for both guys.

 

what did rorschach write?

 

naa just kiddin

 

Joe had great speed, but he concentrated more on volume than accuracy.

He was a great fighter, but he was easy to hit.

When he fought Bernard, it was a case of quantity vs quality.

Personally, I think a fight against Ward would have looked very similar to his fight against Bernard.

No, Froch didn't run him pretty close. Those scores were ridiculous.

 

omg. "froch ran him close" you are failey?

 

Ward and Roy Jones are the two guys form Calzaghe's era--current who I would pick to beat him at 168.

 

Froch was coming off a loss to Kessler, how does that make him a better victory, unless you are referring to the manner in which Froch was dominated?

175 was weak outside of Jones jr and Michalczweski, who was very underated. The fact that a guy in Johnson was champion when he was a borderline journeyman in the 168 division you are complaining about.

As for Ward moving up imo and he's openly admitted that he couldn't make 168 anymore, that's not detracting away from what he did to SK.

 

As was alot of mandatories from the "big 3"

Calzaghe beat 10 current or former world champions throughout his career. Did he have poor defences? Of course he did but the opposition was no worse than Brand, Green or Smith Jr.

 

Calzaghe is easier to hit. Ward has the superior skillset and superior ring IQ. Joe's best bet is to slap in volume but Ward in his prime is too mobile and good at parrying & countering to get mugged by that. I think most people picking Joe do so out of the comfort of never being able to see the fight play out and disliking Ward.

 

This is when Joe's speed becomes overrated. He was fast , but not prime Roy , Leonard , Taylor level fast. And what good is speed when the punches are as Manny Steward put it - amateurish slaps?

Froch got dominated in that fight , he was never once in a moments control. This is a myth has grown over the years and now people believe it.
It probably stemmed from Ward easing off his attack due to his broken hand. Even with that injury -Froch whose an old school trowback guy who comes on strong in the later rounds - still wasn't able to do anything to him and thats a testament to Wards ring craft , movement ,defence , stamina , endurance etc.

Its possible that Calaghe spends large portions of the fight chasing after Ward swatting at thin air. Joe had a very fan friendly style against medium level opposition but Hopkins timing upset his rhythm which made the fight horrendous to watch. Ward would make Joe look a lot worse than Hopkins did , i tell ya that right off the bat.

 

Froch and Kessler are on a similar level in my opinion. Yes, Andre dominating him with a double fractured hand was very impressive.

The LHW division during the majority of Joe's WBO reign was stronger than the SMW
division.

Glen Johnson was never a great fighter, but he was obviously better suited to LHW.

Do you really want to do a comparison between the 2 divisions?

Look at the recognisable names that Joe could have targeted at LHW, and then look at the guys who he actually starved himself to fight instead. It's a joke.

Regarding Andre moving up, he'd have moved up at some point anyway. He wouldn't have stayed in a division where there were no big fights on the horizon. And when he did move up, he certainly didn't have to fight the most feared man at the weight.

 

Every fighter fights low level mandatories regardless of which organisation they're fighting for. But the WBO's fighters sometimes only had mandatories every 2 years. It was just a joke of an organisation. The Darrin Morris incident is a prime example of that. And who the hell makes a guy rematch someone who they'd already beaten in a single round just a few years earlier?

The bad thing about Joe's resume, is that out of his 21 defences, only about a 3rd of those were mandatories.

 

I think a lot of these opinions are based on emotion rather than logic.

Seriously, anyone who thinks that Joe would have beaten Andre with absolute ease, is completely clueless.

 

No one. Because it's fantasy.