Carl Froch sets the record straight on who would have won if he fought Calzaghe

Which is exactly the level Ward was fighting. I've listed his whole defences....his run at 168 get vastly overrated.

 

They both had vastly different attitudes.

Andre put his zero on the line and moved up to a fight a prime big punching LHW.

Again, Joe was content to defend a lightly regarded WBO belt against whoever Frank W lined up.

Joe would never have taken a risk like Andre did, especially after being inactive for a prolonged period of time.

 

So now once again you have shifted back to the allegation that JC would never move up to fight SK on the basis that you believe he wouldn't.....okay and as we know Ward would never fight Joe as he's never left the US and was unwilling to so we must assume that he's of ducked him.....So you claim JC was content to face weak opposition, besides Kessler and Kovalev...throw in Froch although he's lost to Kessler and imo Dirrell who was a hype job.....who left that Ward fought would be considered top tier?

Green...Rodriguez....Brand....Smith jr.....Bika......AA.....Barrerra????.....

Non of the above are HOF worthy either.

 

You're getting desperate.

Yes, Andre never left the U.S. in 32 fights. We've established that he didn't need to due to his circumstances.

Again, Joe only left Europe twice in 46 fights.

If that's your evidence to support a theory that Andre would have ducked Joe, it's very weak.

If it made sense for everyone concerned, with the TV networks and the PPV revenue etc, there would have been no logical reason for Ward to have swerved the fight, either in the U.K. or somewhere neutral. He and his advisors were talking to Hearn in May regarding a possible Bellew fight either in the U.S. or the U.K.

My opinion regarding Joe is not weak. It's very strong.

Again, he ran in the Welsh mountains and starved himself to shrink himself down to SMW in order to defend a lightly regarded belt for 10 years.

He claimed that he didn't want tough fights.

He wouldn't fight up at LHW even with Showtime's backing.

He wasn't interested in Roy, Tarver, Pavlik or Dawson, yet he was happy to fight Veit twice and 2 TV contestants. So yes, of course Joe was content to fight weak opposition.

Andre didn't have to move up and fight Kovalev. He didn't need to take a fight like that. He fought guys like Rodriguez as a tune up, whereas a guy like Rodriguez was just a routine WBO defence for Joe.

There was no risk in Joe fighting a 43 year old Hopkins who he could out volume, as well as the ghost of Roy Jones, who he'd deemed as being shot.

Yes, Andre didn't fight lots of elite fighters. But he sought out the best and most riskiest fight available to him, whereas Joe did not.

 

I'll have to jump in & ave a rant..

Pavlik? Didn't his team approach Pavlik after he beat 'the next superstar' hype Tyson Lacy? & Pavlik declined? I'm sure I read that a couple of times a while back.. & if I remember rightly he was trying to get a Bhop fight in 2002 no?

Roy was a shell. Cash out fight. No interest in it for me..

But Tarver & Pavlik? Both beaten by Hopkins the #1 LHW .. Beaten easily. You can't **** on a guy for not fighting the guys who got schooled by the guy he beat LOL Only a few months after Calzaghe beat Bhop he schooled Kelly.. A MW! A much older version of Bhop pretty much gave Kovalev a big chunk of his legacy so shitting on Calzaghes win is pretty much demeaning Wards LHW escapades!! Pascal & Bhop made sergeys name.. Pascal having lost to an older Bhop!!

& come on... Peak Kessler was every bit as good as Pavlik. He posed nothing much stylistically that Kessler didn't have.. Other than being a tad chinnier maybe & a bit smaller! I'd have favoured 2007/8 Kessler to best Pavlik at a fair catch weight. Calzaghe would have beaten Pavlik mate, look at how Hopkins played with him, look at how small southpaw Martinez tore him up! I rate Pavlik but it's not true that he wasn't interested, that is my recall of the talk at the time any way & its a bit harsh suggesting he was content to fight weak opposition when he fought the #1 at LHW & SMW.. Same as Ward did!

Yes I'd have liked to have seen him matched better overall I suppose but politics, timing, promoters & arrogant fighters etc are as much a factor here, I can't see him being solely to blame..

As for Dawson? Would have been a good fight.. But he was 36 & he'd beaten the best SMW & LHW at that time & I remember him in interviews & u could tell he'd made his mind up around 2007/8 ish to pretty much walk away soon, hand injuries, the fire fading etc Calzaghe was cashing out by then that's all. Dawson was a still making a name for himself..

Cheers.

 

Eh? He'd just dominated southpaw Tarver not long back! No risk in fighting the lineal LHW champion? Of course there was risk.. New division, the champions home nation, a noted spoiler!!! Stop it....

The fight alone proved there was risk! They both neutralized each other to some extent & it was a stink fest.. Bhop gave him his hardest fight in years maybe even more so than Kessler!

 

Liquorice,

Jump in my friend.

I've always said that the situation with Pavlik was bizarre.

In 2008, Pavlik was a name.

It would have been a big fight, and more relevant than fighting Roy.

Pavlik and his handlers wanted it, but Joe declined their advances, as in his opinion, Pavlik had done nothing to warrant a fight with him. However, like you've mentioned, Joe then admitted that they'd tried to fight Kelly in 2006 directly after the Lacy fight. Yet at that point in time, he was an unknown NABF champ.

So:

1. Why did he target an unknown NABF champ?

2. If he was willing to fight him when he was unknown, why wouldn't he fight him in a big fight when he was well known?

He was desperate for Roy's name on his resume. But he gave him 50% of everything and it was a PPV flop.

Bernard hadn't beaten them at the time he dismissed them. It doesn't matter that he beat Bernard who beat both of them. That's not the point. The point, is to look at his decision making. Personally, I think he'd have schooled Pavlik worse than Bernard did. But Tarver would have been interesting, especially as we never saw Joe fight a rangy, world class southpaw. Also, I'm sure you know all about triangle theories in boxing.

As above.

That's not the point I'm making. Yes, of course he beat better fighters than Pavlik. But again, he dismissed Pavlik to instead face a guy who he'd deemed as shot. So again, what makes anybody think that he'd have fought a guy like Kovalev?

Look at the guys who were campaigning at LHW for the majority of his WBO reign.

Look at the guys who he fought at SMW instead.

Take into account that he had to literally starve himself to fight those guys.

Take into account that in his autobiography he stated that in his opinion, LHW would be his ideal weight class.

Again, the point is: He only had his last 2 fights at LHW.

If he wouldn't fight guys like Dawson because he was looking to instead cash out against a faded legend like Roy, then there's no way he'd ever have fought a guy like Kovalev.

If he wouldn't move up to LHW earlier to try and face guys like Roy and Dariusz etc, again, there's no way he'd ever have fought a guy like Kovalev.

One final point: Joe had a bad attitude and he never liked giving guys credit.

When asked by the media regarding a potential fight against Dawson, instead of him saying that he'd achieved all he wanted to and that he wished Chad all the best in his career etc, he instead said:

"Chad Dawson has done nothing to warrant a fight with me, and he doesn't excite me"

This is a guy who fought the likes of Manfredo and Bika, as well as Roy who he'd deemed as being shot for many years.

At the time Joe was trying to con people into believing that Roy was back to his best before they fought, Dawson had beaten: Harding, Adamek, Johnson and Tarver, and he wanted the fight.

Anytime.

 

I wasn't talking literally.

Every fight is a risk.

It's a boxing match.

What I'm saying, is that there was no real risk for Joe in regards to the stylistic match up, with many things being in his favour.

Joe was famed for his engine, his speed and his volume.

Bernard always had issues with speed.

He always had issues with movement.

He was 43 years of age and way past his physical prime.

He also didn't possess any power at the weight to deter Joe from pouring foward.

Joe could outwork him with speed and volume.

It was a relatively safe fight for him to take.

Compare that to Ward facing a huge punching LHW in his prime, when Ward only had respectable power at SMW, and he'd been inactive over a prolonged period of time.

Compare it to facing a big southpaw in Dawson, who was young and hungry etc.

Joe facing Bernard with his style at 43, would not have been the same as him facing guys like Kovalev and Dawson. From Joe's perspective, those guys would have been much more of a risk.

As it turned out, yes, Bernard pushed him very hard. Personally, I don't think that Joe and his father expected the fight to be as difficult as it ended up being.

 

Ward took 1 risk to fight Kovalev, a Kovalev who's resume at 175 was paper thin in beating past prime ex champions albeit in good style.

Hopkins was P4P number 2 when Calzaghe moved up and beat him.

Taking risks is going to other fighters back yards....taking risks is jumping straight into the deep end like JC did in your first fight at a new weight.

Ward had 3 fights at light heavyweight prior to Kovalev....and Ward was an ex light heavyweight in the amateur.

 

And your evidence is very thin on why Calzaghe would duck Kovalev....a Kovalev who's stand out victory is over the exact guy who you claim there was no risk for Calzaghe fighting him yet Kovalev beat him 5 years later......you see your double standards here?

My logic is solid in your world.....Ward wouldn't leave US where he could foul, wrestle and he wasn't even selling out arenas.....so he'd never come to a stadium fight in the UK.

Also the USA is a country....Europe is a continent.....there's a massive difference in language, culture and everything else.

 

You are a much better poster than I originally gave you credit for, apologizes and good post.

 

'IF' is cheap

 

It was a risk that Joe would never have taken.

You need to wake up.

He only had 2 LHW fights in his entire career.

He missed the entire LHW division for 14 years, by shrinking himself down from 196 pounds, to fight mostly lesser fighters at SMW.

In his autobiography he says that his ideal weight would be LHW.

He is on record as dismissing Roy, Tarver, Pavlik and Dawson.

Hello! A guy who starves himself to fight Mario Veit twice would not have fought a guy like Kovalev.

It's a fantasy.

You sound like Bailey with your stats, and you never look from the perspective of the fighter.

Yes, Bernard was ranked higher than Kovalev P4P when Joe fought him. So what? He was still a 43 year old fighter with no power, who Joe knew he could out speed and out volume.

Ward moved up after prolonged inactivity, to face a huge punching LHW who was prime, despite not being a puncher himself.

It doesn't matter that Kovalev's best win was a guy who Joe beat, and it doesn't matter where they were ranked at the time. Ward putting up his zero against Kovalev, was significantly more dangerous than Joe putting his up against Bernard.

Yes, it was a new division for him. But for the first time in years, he felt stronger because he didn't have to literally starve himself in order to make weight.

Yes, he fought in Vegas. And credit to him for that.

 

calzaghe did very well to fight 40somethings as his lifetime career highpoint, credit where credit it due.

 

My evidence is super strong.

Now you're just being ignorant.

What double standards?

Yes, Kovalev's best win was Bernard.

Yes, Joe beat Bernard.

And?

That means that Joe would have fought Kovalev?

I don't know what more you want.

Again, in his own career, he would not move up to LHW until his 15th and final year.

He missed out on fighting the likes of Roy and Dariusz, by claiming he didn't want tough fights and instead starving himself to defend a lightly regarded WBO belt against mostly B and C class fighters.

Again, he publicly dismissed guys like Roy, Tarver, Pavlik and Dawson. Yet in your world, he'd have moved up and fought a huge punching, dangerous prime LHW in Kovalev?

This is a guy who questioned the credentials of Chad Dawson, to instead fight a guy who he'd dismissed as being shot 4 years earlier.

He would NEVER have fought Kovalev.

The evidence is staring you in the face.

Yes, Andre didn't travel because he didn't need to. But again, you don't know that he wouldn't have under different circumstances. Again, Joe only travelled himself twice, despite having had 14 more fights.

It's as simple as this:

Joe would never have fought Kovalev, because if he'd have been willing to have done so, he wouldn't have skipped LHW in his own time to fight the guys that he did. Whereas at least there'd have been a chance of Andre travelling, if it had've made sense to all concerned.

If you're saying that he definitely would have ducked Joe because he never travelled, you might as well claim that Floyd Mayweather would have ducked Kell Brook, on the basis that he never travelled either. It's ridiculous.

I'll be honest, I don't think you lived through Joe's era. Because if you did, you'd laugh at the notion of him fighting a guy like Kovalev, especially right at the end of his career. According to Frank W, Joe wanted to fight a guy called Freeman Barr. And to my knowledge, Joe's never denied it.