Calzaghe WBO reign, "a decade of dross"

He didn't write a book. It was written for him.

 

Bernard Hopkins was RING magazine Light-Heavyweight Champion and he was ranked among RING magazine's top 5 pound-for-pound (at #4, with Joe at #5) as of the end of 2007.

[url]https://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_Ring_Magazine%27s_Annual_Ratings:_2007[/url]

The fight was for the legitimate 175 pound world title. So, yeah, "box ticking" in the sense of Calzaghe ticked the box of winning the legitimate title at the higher weight.
And Hopkins remained a top contender (also briefly the champion again) at 175 for the next 6 1/2 years after he fought Calzaghe. So he was clearly a force.

Personally, I didn't think Calzaghe won the fight. I think it was pretty much an even fight and Hopkins might have shaded it with the knockdown. Although I'm not sure Hopkins deserved it with his awful stalling tactics.
But it's a WIN on paper for Calzaghe and plenty say he earned it, and it's undeniably a very good win.

 

A shot to pieces RJJ? Lacey was a nothing.

Joe's DAD had to threaten Joe with I'm leaving if he didn't face Lacey.

Joe, in his OWN WORDS, wanted nothing to do with RJJ in his prime and cited "fear of flying" for not meeting him. Yet somehow, Joe discovered he liked flying very much and decided to fight RJJ something like FIVE YEARS after he first got knocked out.

Joe was a great talker ON camera, off it? He had no self belief.

 

Spot on, Tony.

RJJ and Hopkins had a combined age of something like 80/85 when Joe fight them. Say no more!

 

Hopkins was a force. He was past his best, (I know he aged well but I'm not accepting a 43 year old was in his prime), but it was a fair fight for Calzaghe. Box ticking exercise for that was a bit strong.

Definitely the case for the Jones fight.

 

Imagine what Joe would have done to Eubank, Kessler and Lacy if he had a little bit of self belief

 

Hopkins and Jones often get grouped together on Calzaghe's record, both in the positive and the negative.

They were night and day though at that point of their careers. Hopkins was a p4p contender, and the Calzaghe fight was sandwiched in between some of his best wins over Tarver, Wright and Pavlik. He remained a factor at LHW for years after fighting Calzaghe.

Jones was a shell of a once great fighter, who had been wiped out by Tarver and Johnson and would not long after get done in a round by Danny Green.

Hopkins was a great win, especially if you just look at it on the record and forget the actual fight. Jones was a pretty meaningless win, and should be filed away with all the other examples of top fighters beating up on shot legends.

 

Sadly, imagine what Joe would have done to Tarver, Johnson, Pavlik, Froch, Taylor, Beyer and Woods. We'd be talking about a guy who would quite conceivably be without equal in conversations about our best ever boxer.

 

I remember Hopkins doing push ups during the Pascal fight. Beat that kid so easily.

 

Shot, Good win, Hype job.

Any more?

 

the problem is boxing isnt organised so when someone see 46-0 it seems incredible but we know for long periods of time calzaghe fought sub par, look tyson fury, he is undefeated and if he retired today in 10 years people would be saying he is unbeatble but he never fought johua, parker, ruiz jnr, klitschko rematch, whyte, pulev, povetkin etc etc....fighters for the most are great at cerry picking, floyd mayweather did it aswell.

i dont see calazghe beating prime jones, toney, and i dont think if he fought mcellan, benn, eubank, watson he would be going undefeteated at one point he would lose.

 

To further the point, imagine T. Fury fights Wilder a 3rd time, then takes on Chisora for a 3rd fight. (he has said it)..he could end up as 31-0-1 and being 2 time lineal champ who won the WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO, Lineal, ring mag.

So on paper it would seem incredible but essentially he has 2 first class names klitschko, wilder x2 then only a few 2nd class like chisora x2, cunnigham, then a bunch of 3rd class wins mcdermott, k.johonson, c. hammer, pianeta, wallin which is essentslly 9 names that a considered decent to top level boxers as after that it all low level, or domestic level types.

Thus it creates an illusion of huge superiority when the reality is more complex and a huge qaunity of top boxers are left out, he is clearly more talented and better than d. price or Ustinov but he also avoided both.

 

This is what I’ve said several times about Lewis. Beat Tyson, Holyfield and Bowe absolutely ducked him. But he’s a great because he cleaned out the division. Joe got nowhere near doing that.

 

Lacy was the overwhelming favourite on this forum at the time. Easy to say he was nothing now.

 

Yes, very frustrating I agree. But it's not like he didn't have fights with Johnson and Woods lined up but cancelled due to injury. They just couldn't get the Beyer fight. Froch hadn't fought above Euro level before Calzaghe retired and they chose Hopkins over Pavlik.

He wasn't even the the same division as Tarver until the last two fights of his career and he was never in the same division as Taylor.

I get where you are coming from, his resume is underwhelming compared to his talent - I agree. But it's not like he got to pick and choose his fights as Roy Jones did.