The Sonata Of The Italian Dragon: The Improvisational Virtuosity Of Signore Calzaghe.

Of all the fighters in recent memory aside from Mayweather and Pacquiao the one the draws in equal measure the most devoted followers and fanboys and the most vitriolic spiteful haters would have to be the one and only Pride Of Newbridge, Wales himself, Joe Calzaghe. Although I find much of it unwarranted, however a few criticism may be somewhat apt, sure maybe he could have fought outside of the UK a little more often, maybe some of his biggest wins came against fighters that may have been slightly past their prime, maybe he didn't sit down on his shots enough, maybe his personality is grating and rubs some people the wrong way, you can say anything you want to about him, but the fact still remains, he's the greatest Super Middleweight of All Time undefeated at 46-0 and was one of the most unique, talented and innovative boxers of the modern era. Skillwise he's one of the most consistently underrated fighters on these forums, he's as well rounded as they come, and anyone who doesn't understand the genius of Joe Calzaghe you might not process the sweet science as adequately as you should. For all the lovers and the haters of Slappy Joe, I'm going to make the case for him being a true boxing virtuoso.


Many of the so called fans of the sweet science dislike Calzaghe and frequently dismiss him as a fighter who merely overwhelmed his opponents with an abundance of arm punches and outworked them from start to finish and that outside of having tremendous stamina, he was nothing special, well maybe they don't know as much as they think they do.


Joe Calzaghe had the luxury of not relying on only one style of boxing, he's a walking Pugilistic Pastiche, he was a Joe Of All Trades, and a master of most. That's the reason why most people have such a hard time defining his style, because it was a little bit of all of the above. It was a cobbling together of every style imaginable, pouring into the blender of Joe and Enzo's brains and depending on who he was fighting that night, out would come the perfect style to beat that particular opponent.

Was he a Boxer-Puncher...Yes.
Was he a Swarmer...Yes.
Was he a Pressure Fighter....Yes.
Was he a Counterpuncher...Yes.
Was he an Out-Boxer...Yes.
Was he a Slugger....Yes.
Was he a Rhythm Breaker...Yes.

And that's precisely the reason why he was so damn hard to beat, he was the closest thing the sport has had to an improvisational virtuoso. He like his father is a Jazz musician, only he plays his jazz in the ring, he fought in a polyphonic syncopated style, either by way of setting an improbable rhythm that his opponent wasn't expecting or breaking the rhythm that they had brought into the ring with them. He was a master of adjustments, sometimes they were small enough for the untrained eye to not notice, or obvious enough for anyone to pick up on, whatever style his opponents brought he could adjust to it, and if they adjusted again, he'd adjust to their adjustment. That's is the level of boxing intellect they were dealing with, no one could figure him out, no matter how hard they tried.

Let's analyze some of his more notable performances.

Joe Calzaghe vs. Mikkel Kessler - Perhaps his finest performance alongside Lacy. Against the undefeated Kessler... Calzaghe laid the blueprint for fellow rhythm breaker Andre Ward to follow, Kessler while a brilliant boxer, almost perfect in every way, great footwork, great jab, great at controlling range, great accuracy, however Joe realized after two feel out rounds that Mikkel had a built in rhythm he relied upon and by disrupting that rhythm like Ward, it could neutralize Kessler's offense a great deal, since he has to set his feet to fire off his jab and combinations, Joe started using off kilter feints and jabs sometimes doubling it or tripling it up to work his way the inside, and when he got through his use of angles and his superior speed coupled with his accuracy thoroughly befuddled Kessler more and more as the match progressed, it was a form of intelligent swarming. A round or two later he changed the complexion of the fight entirely again by using feints to bait Kessler in and started countering him with little hooks and jabs, you see he didn't just changed the rhythm he changed styles as well, effortlessly shifting from offensive in one round to boxing off the backfoot and counterpunching in the next. And as the match progressed Joe became more defensively sound slipping or rolling with much of what Mikkel gave him, so with the constant jarring shifts in rhythm coupled with the pace that Joe set, he completely overwhelmed and almost mentally shut Kessler down midway through the fight, although he never stopped trying, he was confused by Joe's versatility, and then Joe changed the look again, he shifted into a pressure fighter bobbing and weaving his way in landing his flurries with ease, and upsetting that rhythm by morphing into a boxer puncher in between his flurries. Unlike Ward just constantly getting off first and using his speed to offset Kessler's rhythm, Joe basically gave him a different style not only from round to round, sometimes from minute to minute within the rounds. Joe's performance while maybe not as dominant as Ward's it was far more brilliant in every possible way.

Calzaghe vs. Lacy - Most probably remember this match inaccurately as Joe walking down Jeff and slapping the hell out of him until he was about to keel over, but that's not the case. What Calzaghe did in that match wasn't a masterclass in pressure and volume, it was a masterclass in defensive counterpunching, it was a display of counterpunching more brilliant than anything Floyd Mayweather has come close to approaching. Jeff Lacy much like many of Floyd's opponents, he walks his opponents down and beats them into submission with intelligent usually effective aggression eventually wearing them down and taking them out with his fearsome left hook. The conventional way to fight a southpaw is to move to their right, well Lacy isn't a southpaw, he's orthodox and just happens to pack a hell of a left hook, so instead of moving away from the left hook, Joe moved into it, so close in fact that he smothered it completely almost rendering it useless, he realized Jeff needed space to load up on it and by doing that in negated and basically took the left hook out of the equation, add in his constant parrying of it, and hooking over it, it basically defanged Lacy. Yet Lacy was still coming forward like a mad bull but he needed to plant is feet to fire off his punches, Joe turned him repeatedly never allowing him to get into his groove or even set his feet. Calzaghe was the ultimate counterpunching matador in that match, Lacy like a bull walked into basically everything Joe threw firing in combinations, giving him angles and every punch in the book, all the while rolling with and slipping the few punches that Lacy was able to get off. It was one of the most brilliant displays of counterpunching in the modern era, the ironic thing is, most fans of counterpunchers never seem to realize it.

Calzaghe vs. Bika - Similar to his fight with Ward, Bika's brutally unorthodox style gave Joe fits as well, Bika who has no rhythm to adjust to, basically functions as the boxing equivalent of a jazz musician as well, so Joe had a similarly hard time fighting Bika as Ward did, only he performed marginally better shading most of the rounds and beating him a little more comprehensively than Ward. Ward had a hard time beating Bika because as a rhythm breaker, he couldn't get Bika's off kilter rhythm, Joe on the other hand while a rhythm breaker himself is also offensively a lot more versatile than Ward, and can set an equally awkward rhythm. Ward beat Bika by taming him somewhat between his wild fits of aggression, Joe beat him by morphing into Bika himself, he became just as awkward and unorthodox as Bika, added in counters, making Bika a little more cautious of throwing with reckless abandon, he changed the angles of his punches, resorted to infighting, and in general fighting just as dirty as Bika. He threw Bika off his rhythm by out Bikaing Bika. Brilliant. How's that for chameleonic?

Calzaghe vs. Jones Jr. - The trend of beating a fighter with his own style kind of continued into his fight with Roy, although it was his bravado that he stole, not his style. Roy likes his space, he has a rhythm which you could call staccato, he's very methodical and picks his punches well, he waits for the perfect moment to unfurl his straight right at range and gets out of there and he repeats that pattern adding in two punch combos along the way, and countering his opponents when they overreach, he's the definition of low output. So what did Joe have to do, take the distance he so craved away, he got in Roy's face never allowing him to get in his comfort zone, from the second round on Roy was uncomfortable and basically rendered impotent by Joe's speed, control of range, his awkward in and out rhythm and blistering combinations. It was one of Joe's easiest wins, he never allowed Roy into the match and even showboated throughout it like Roy to further demoralize him. Was Roy shot? I say no, not the best Roy, but definitely not the worst, the move back down from Heavyweight most likely affected him for a few fights, possibly weakened by the shifts in weight, but he'd gotten his grove back somewhat having just come off of beating Hanshaw and Trinidad. Joe was just a bad style clash for Roy, probably always would have been.

 

Calzaghe vs. Hopkins - Hopkins wasn't shot then and he wasn't shot against Kovalev, he was the same old Hopkins he was against Tarver, Taylor, Trinidad and Joppy, Calzaghe's style would have also always been a problem for BHop as well. Hopkins relies on opponents having a set rhythm, much like Ward, so he can break it, and similar to what happened with Kovalev, Calzaghe's slightly offbeat tempo was just too awkward to get the timing off and it offset Hopkins. Calzaghe's footwork, his feints, his jab, his infighting, his counter hooks coming out of hold, awkward angles, reflexes, speed and accuracy he was able to throw Hopkins just enough to outwork him and land the cleaner shots through most of the last 8 rounds. Were many of the rounds close, yeah, but his activity edged most of them. Was it a masterclass from Calzaghe...no, but it was one of the more comprehensive beatings of Hopkins career aside from his losses to Dawson and Kovalev.

The five wins over the opponents I just listed are impressive as hell, because it showcases his range as a fighter, you couldn't imagine five more wildly divergent styles to end a career on than this bunch, yet Calzaghe went into the ring sometimes as a bull, sometimes as the matador, and sometimes a little of both and handled them all with relative ease. Fighters like Mayweather and Pacquiao are risk averse they usually choose opponents that make them look good, and when they encounter a style like Castillo or Marquez they did their best avoid it in the future. Not Joe, even as he was nearing the end of his career and fighting away from home against fighters that should have had the homefield advantage, but he didn't care because he knew just how damn good he was, and always knew he'd be one step ahead of them.

As far as the lack of KO's, first he like Floyd had chronic hand problems suffering broken hands throughout his career, therefore he had to adjust the velocity of his punches if he wanted to continue in the sport, similar problems seem to being plaguing Lomachenko and Inoue as well. Second... what do you expect, with better competition comes better chins, and remind me again how many other fighters have been able to stop Eubank, Hopkins, Kessler or Bika? Seek out some of his early fights on Youtube, he actually had some fairly impressive non-British stoppages to his credit, Manfredo match notwithstanding.

He was a brilliant fighter who could slightly adjust his rhythm and style from match to match effortlessly, styles may make fights, but Joe would always make his opponent's style bend to his will. He was an improvisational virtuoso, he was the pugilistic equivalent the improvisational jazz that his father played to him as a child. Personally I think of him as a classical violinist virtuoso from the Baroque era almost like Boxing's own version of Bach or Paganini. So before you just throw around this brilliant fighters name as a punchline to some dumb joke, think it over a little bit, because no real fan of the sweet science should ever be derogatory towards and besmirch the name of such a masterful fighter as Joe Calzaghe.

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I made this thread about 3 years ago in the General, I figured I'd make a duplicate for over here. I don't do threads like this very often, rarely get a chance in between all the RBR's. But I figured you' all like it.