Now who wins prime Calzaghe or prime Ward?

So hypothetically if say Ricky Burns held the WBC and WBA and Crawford held the IBF or WBO, you'd hold Burns in higher esteem and as the best in the division?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Ring_world_champions#Super_middleweight

Granted, this is wikipedia, but even based om memory, I don't recall Joe C getting the ring title until later.

 

I would need a lot more info than that to make an informed decision. Hypotheticals require more data to be realistic IMO.

 

You said unified champs always trump single champs....this was part of my hypothetical question.

Also Ottke was never the ring champion.

 

No, what I said was...ALMOST always. And I Never claimed Ottke the ring champ. But in the absence of a ring champion, you have two guys in the same division, making the same number of title defenses, but one guy has two titles, the other has the lowest respected title (At the time), with the worst known rankings.

 

But Calzaghe had the better results against common opponents.

 

Meh...something like that can simply be a matter styles.

 

He wasn't THEE champion at SMW.

He was a WBO champion.

Look, we know he was an outstanding fighter.

We know he'd have beaten Sven.

Yes, maybe unofficially to those who knew of him, he was the best SMW in the world. But what we're doing here, is looking at how he was perceived outside of Europe at the time. Me, you and many others may have known how great he was, but to the U.S. fans and media, he was a relatively unknown fighter who held a belt which wasn't even recognised.

I used Griffin merely as an example.

I said that fighting a recognisable name such as Griffin in the U.S. would have gotten him a lot more exposure, and it could have led to bigger fights.

A relatively unknown WBO, SMW champ wasn't going to get people talking about potential match ups with the likes of Roy.

Naseem Hamed went to the U.S. and fought Kevin Kelley.

Ricky Hatton went to the U.S. and fought Jose Luis Castillo.

If they'd have stayed in the U.K. they would never have gotten fights with MAB and Floyd etc.

Why do you need this explaining to you?

Regarding Manfredo, yes, Joe could do huge numbers in Wales in front of his beloved fans. The same with Kessler. But outside of Wales, he wasn't huge box office, and in the U.S. the PPV is far more relevant than the actual gate.

Regarding Griffin again, it wouldn't have mattered how many people would have been in attendance. If the fight had aired on Showtime (who Joe had a contract with) and he'd have put in a good performance, he would have made waves stateside and then they could have looked at another recognisable name afterwards. That's how the business works. And without doing something like that, he had no chance of getting fights against named fighters. The fact that he didn't fight in the U.S. or up at LHW, is the reason why he was fighting guys like Mger Mkrtchyan in his 30's.

Regarding Roy, he wasn't content facing the Hall's of the world. He was willing to fight Dariusz in the U.S. and he wanted a Hopkins rematch. If Joe had held the WBO belt at that point and they'd have been a call for the fight like with Roy-Dariusz, or he'd have been Roy's mandatory, then there's no reason why Roy wouldn't have taken the fight.

 

I often wonder why Joe C didn't target Dariusz M. Surely he'd have little problems being approved, as the WBO champ at 168 moving to the WBO champ at 175. Ambitions?

 

There's no doubting Andre Dirrell's talent, but like I said previously, unfortunately, he's mentally weak. In my honest opinion, he definitely beat Carl Froch though.

Regarding the strength of the SMW divisions from Joe's era to Andre's era, I said that Andre's era was just as strong as Joe's. And that's because along with himself, there was also: Andre Dirrell, Mikkel Kessler, Carl Froch and Lucian Bute.

Yes, saying that Andre didn't fight all of those guys is a different argument altogether. Just because he didn't fight them, it doesn't alter how strong the division was.

You can say that Joe's division was strong because he had Frankie Liles and Sven Ottke etc in it at one point. Yet he didn't fight either of those guys. Again, why he didn't fight them is another argument altogether.

Your initial point was to suggest that Joe's era was stronger than Andre Ward's. But in actual fact, it wasn't.

 

An outstanding post.

I've said it over and over again: Joe was a great fighter, but he wasn't overly ambitious.

The reason he held that WBO belt for 10 years is very simple: Because he wanted to.

Holding onto that belt was his prerogative. But it's one of the reasons why he didn't get bigger fights earlier on in his career.

A guy who was relatively unknown in the U.S. and who defended a lightly regarded belt, didn't interest any big name fighter or network, nor stir up any interest amongst the fans.

 

Great post.

I'm glad other posters are laughing off his statistics.

 

No it wasn't.

The WBO were a laughing stock back then.

 

Funny thing is, I actually consider myself a bigger fan of Joe C then Ward. I always wanted to make the move to the US, as many other foreigners have done to garner exposure in the US. And it bothered me that it never happened until way laterr. But I think with his high volume attack, he'd probably have gained some popularity quickly. Especially had he fought and beat Griffin. I honestly believe he could have been a decent NY, or east coast, attraction.

While the WBO has gained round, back then, since there was virtually no chance of unification w/ other titlists, it held some back (Unless one had huge star power. ABC's love them fees!). I didn't like it when Margarito was the WBO WW champ, nor when Paul Williams beat him for it. It was almost a curse to win it, unless unification or other titlists were simply none of your business.