Why mention Veit? He was the mandatory for both of those defences. Whether you think Veit was a bum or not, he was undefeated when he fought Calzaghe the 1st time and the 2nd time was only his 2nd defeat. It should also be pointed out that Veit did actually have a victory over Jurgen Braehmer after losing to Calzaghe. Maybe he wasn't so bad - and maybe its just a case of Calzaghe being on a different level to most world titlists/challengers.
Ward’s boxing IQ was superior to Calzaghe’s. Ward defeated guys like Kessler easily at Kessler’s peak who Calzaghe has a life and death battle with. Ward also destroyed Chad Dawson and Kovalev when Kovalev was the Krusher. Super Joe Calzaghe was good but compared to Andre S.O.G Ward, Calzaghe ain’t ****.
I'm picking Ward to win this fight too. It's hard to pick him winning it easily and clearly simply because of Calzaghe's style. He's far too active in there to make rounds decisive for either of them.
ok. I have never said that the fight would be easy for Calzaghe. for the record....Ward has a will to win that is admirable and does not flinch in the face of adversity. Consider the way he fought his way back from the 2nd round (?) knock down with Kovalev. mainly I just think Calzaghe's volume would be so high that he would win on points. it may be a close fight. Joe's sense of timing, angles, volume etc. would cause Ward problems. In the Lacy fight Calzaghe was able to shut him down with his repertoire. Do think it would be a closer fight..yes. The word I used was outclass. still believe it. checked my list for the number of people that I persuaded...prior to Joe's fights... to bet the farm on the outcome....the number was zero. no one can sue in court effectively as they still have their farms. no harm no foul.
lmfao. Calzaghe took a few rounds to work Kessler out (fairly even rounds), then put on a clinic - and would have knocked him down and possibly out had the ref not intervened.
Mario Veit became Joe's mandatory for the second time, despite the fact that Joe had already beaten him in a single round, just 3-4 years earlier. Do you not think that that was an absolute joke? A great fighter like Joe, fighting a guy like that again when he was in his 30's? The WBO were a joke. Yet Joe was more than happy to fight whoever they put in front of him. Go and look at his resume from Eubank to Lacy. A near 10 stretch before he got his recognition stateside. The point is: If anyone was going to avoid the fight, it would more than likely have been Joe, rather than Andre. Joe would never have fought Dawson or Kovalev.
Whereas Ward worked Kessler out from the start beat the living crap out of him and stopped him. I agree no comparison. Your analysis says Calzaghe would have and possibly had the referee not intervened .. whereas my mate SOG just gets the job done against all comers no excuses. Name the best fighter Calzaghe beat at that fighters peak?
It's the return of the original ESB stalwart, Super Joe! Trained in a dilapidated sheep barn, yet still annihilated America's best in Lacy Hopkin and Jones. Ward would have fared no better
That, my dear Loudon, is but mere speculation What we do know for fact is that Ward retired rather than face the Beterbiev
Really tough to say. I know Joe is all ''too much angles, too much work'' etc, but Ward is one of those chess grand-masters, both of them with no defeats as professionals. I do fancy Calzaghe to win but I'm not super confident. Only similarity with Ward and Lacy is their profession.
What are you on about? Beterbiev didn't even hold a title when Ward retired, he was scheduled to fight in an eliminator.
Kessler was faded when Ward fought him. Calzaghe fought peak undefeated Kessler who was an undefeated unified champ and it wasnt life and death. You are comparing young Ward to old end of SMW career Calzaghe, yet fail to notice that old Calzaghe (who was older at this time than Ward when he retired) looked better against Bika than prime Ward did, even though like Kessler before, Calzaghe had already registered a win over Wards then opponent
Ward had to use headbutts to stop kessler wtf are you talking about? And it wasn't the same undefeated young kessler that zags beat
No. Veit won the eliminator, won the interim, had strung together a series of wins and had fought in a WBO title fight. You once again, dont know the facts. When was he supposed to fight him. It was his mandatory and he won away in Germany. Look at Hopkins fighting Allen 3 times. Sure that is all down to situation with Loudon and Loudon will make all the excuses on this front. Once of course he has spent a day on Google The SMW was more dominant in Europe at that time. He had beaten the best SMWs he could face who were based in America during that time, or the fighter who beat the fighter etc. Its like how Cunningham was fighting in Europe for a while as CW was stronger in Europe than America at that time. SMW was similar. Still Hopkins knew of him and decided against facing him in America at SMW Based on what? What SMWs did Calzaghe look to actively not face when he was in the division? Ward though decided against Bute. Apparently decided against Degale, wasnt interested in facing Froch in Nottingham. There are other examples What? At SMW? Once again based on what? Dawson had a WBO (not world) SMW title and fought on a Calzaghe undercard, then after Calzaghes impressive performance jumped away from SMW and fought older fighters at LHW. Ward didnt face Dawson at LHW and I cant see why you would say Calzaghe wouldnt face Dawson at SMW? He was retired before Kovalev came on the scene. What we do know is that after Calzaghe cleaned up at SMW. He jumped straight up and fought the LHW champ I would say there was less chance of Ward wanting to face Calzaghe. What boxer movers did Ward look to face? Bute? Andre Dirrell? J Degale? Groves? You going to use Froch who took many of those challenges as an excuse? do you really think with what we know that Ward would have travelled to the UK to face the champ Calzaghe? Ward didnt once face any top prime undefeated SMWs in a world title fight imo
Hiya mate, how's things? It's been a long time. It's not speculation. It's realism. I'm not saying he couldn't have beaten them, just that he wouldn't fight them. We know he wouldn't fight Dawson. He said that he had no interest in him as he hadn't impressed him. He also said the same about Tarver and Pavlik. Him fighting Kovalev at LHW is a fantasy. He wouldn't leave SMW even when Ottke wouldn't fight him and there was nothing else on the horizon. Look at the guys who fought at LHW in the late 90's-early 00's, and then look at who he fought from Eubank to Kessler. And he literally had to starve himself in order to fight those WBO guys. A guy who's happy to fight a guy who he's already beaten in a round, as well as guys like Manfredo etc, wouldn't have fought a prime Sergey Kovalev at LHW. It took him 14 years to get to LHW. Regarding Ward, it's disappointing that he retired. But I don't see that he retired specifically to duck Beterbiev.
