Calzaghe vs Ward break down of strengths? Very even across board

surely Veit is a betterwin than woodhall seeing as Richie freely admits he was carrying a retirement worthy back injury into that bout?

I mean, veit was crud sure but he was 100% fit.

 

Depressed, sick of the b side **** when he was the champ..Going to America with the lot stacked against you. These eastern euro's need a level playing, the politics is ruining the game. All above board and watch how they are dominating divisions with their skills. Klits owned the heavy's for over 10 yrs the cruiser's are dominated by the euro fighters currently, the best light heavy is euro, the best middle is Kazak, and p4p no1 is another euro...Times are good man ! Hop on board the euro train for a bit, sample the goodness

 

how come it didnt affect him first time, or affect him in cardiff's welsh ref so corrupt that he carries home fighters to their corner, with Nathan Clev? That was WAY more biased.
Surely if you are right, Kovalev should have got depressed and given up in cardiff on seeing welsh ref carrying clev to his stool.

 

Kov wasn't champ when he fought Clev, he was rightfully B side in Cardiff...Try being champ and having everything stacked against you, money, ref, location, a trainer that wants the opposition to blatantly beat you because hes a brother...Proper team around Kov and there wouldn't of been no Ward rematch

 

i mean, everything was equally against him against Clev, in fact more against him.

Difference is ward ia hellavulot better than Nath.

 

So you think he had it worse with Clev??? Clev's clean as ****, takes it on the chin, no dirty tactics..Many a time ive seen a ref lead a fighter back to his corner after the bell if he's hurt. The two scenario's are not a like

 

How was the location against him? He lives and fights out of America. 28/35 fights were fought in the States.
He was happy as Larry going up to Canada to batter Pascall twice.
Nothing was against him in those fights against Ward. At the end of the day its two men in the ring and Kovalev was given 24 rounds to do whatever he wanted to him.

 

Possibly, but I think he's mentally weak as well.

I think Andre exposed him as being a bully.

He can give it but he can't take it.

He'll never be the same now.

 

They were all low level guys.

The difference was, Andre was looking for an easy tune up, whilst Veit was Joe's WBO mandatory.

Although many fighter's have fought low level mandatories over the years and will continue to do so, Joe fought Veit twice.

He had to fight Veit in a rematch in 2005, despite the fact that he'd already knocked him out in a single round just 4 years prior. And not only that, at the time, Joe was 32/33 and still looking for a big, defining fight.

The WBO were a joke, and he should never have been fighting for them at that stage of his career.

 

Feel free to add some more names.

I forgot to add Brewer and Mitchell.

In my honest opinion, even a not fully fit Woodhall was better than Veit.

 

Probably because its a Russian against an American in America??? We know there's ill feeling there

 

Joe had no choice ?? Ward really dropped a couple of levels for that tune up imo

 

I notice you haven't touted why Joe's run at 175 deserves more credit. But, I'l answer your question for about the 10th, and final, time.

RJJ was shot to pieces by the time Joe fought him. He'd been knocked out three times in a row by guys who weren't known as huge power punchers. Yet this shell of RJJ still managed to knock Joe down and go the distance.

All of Ward's 175 opponents other than Smith knock out this version of Roy. Kovalev possibly delivers a life altering/life ending brain injury. The general sentiment around boxing at the time would be that of an execution, not a fight.

Andre would have stopped this version of Roy and never tasted the canvas.

Hopkins was no physical threat. He could play spoiler and use clinching and dirty tactics to eke out a points win, but hadn't scored a KO in years and would never go on to score another KO.

Joe scored a very narrow points win in a pedestrian affair in which neither man inflicted any notable harm or could claim any type of domination.

Kovalev absolutely brutalized Hopkins and would have done the same to the version Joe faced. He was simply too big and too strong. To equate Joe's win to his is absolute folly.

Barrera gives this version of Hopkins a tough test. There are definitely stylistic similarities between him and Pascal, although Berrara doesn't gas as easily. That could go either way at 175. Smith loses.

The key here is the Kovalev clearly destroys both of Joe's opponents. He entered the ring with Andre as one of the premier power punchers in the sport, a man capable of ending a fight with one shot. Far different than the faded legends Joe faced, who could not seriously hurt anybody by that stage.

 

But who has the most obsessed haters? I think Ward has a lot more at this moment in time having been recently active and involved in controversy but Calzaghe has arguably the most devoted hater of all time in Herol.

 

Not if he wanted to keep his belt, but again, he should never have fought for the WBO at that stage. It was an insult to his talent. But he was more than happy to fight whoever Frank W and the WBO lined up for him.

Regarding Andre, a tune up's a tune up.