Froch rips Calzaghe

Obviously physically Joe Calzaghe had numerous problems and had to adapt his style but it's interesting about his mental side. A shy kid constantly bullied at school, even when they knew he could box, his sisters bullied, people coming to the family home giving him grief. A really quiet and shy kid that lacked confidence but found it through boxing, constantly needed his dad to keep him going, then once he's finally on track with big wins he goes over to America and beats the biggest bully in boxing. It wasn't a classic and I don't think it was the best version of Calzaghe but Hopkins was often awful in that fight, going in with his head and just ruining the flow of the fight with his constant clinch and headbutt combo.

I've got a lot of admiration for what Joe Calzaghe did, Tyson Fury took 2 and a half years off to deal with his demons, for Joe Calzaghe it looks like he was dealing with his problems whilst defending a World Title and being scrutinised from all angles.

 

It was disappointing because he had a huge American network behind him, in Showtime.

He needed to fight in the U.S. and up at LHW much earlier.

 

Showtime signed him in 1999.

 

Joe had Showtime’s backing.

Why would he have needed to have fought 10 rounders had he have moved up?

Also, the WBO would have made him the mandatory to Dariusz had he have moved up.

It was all there for him.

Yes, he had injuries and personal problems. But he could have fought in the U.S. along with Showtime’s backing to target better fighters. But he starved himself to make SMW in order to fight mostly B and C class guys instead.

Roy priced himself out?

It was a BS call out just to look as though they were trying to do something.

As great as Joe was, he was relatively unknown outside of Europe back in the early 00’s.

A relatively unknown WBO, SMW champ doesn’t call for the world’s best fighter to drop down a division and fly to Wales.

It was laughable.

Joe never put himself in position for that fight.

Of course Roy would have wanted huge money to have dropped back to 168 and gone to Cardiff.

Why didn’t Joe move up to LHW and pursue Roy in the U.S.?

We know the answer.

 

Get real.

 

Showtime were huge.

They showed Mike Tyson’s fights.

Joe was on the undercard of a few of them.

Showtime wanted Joe to fight in the U.S.

He didn’t want to.

 

Stop making excuses for him.

He was coming down from 190 plus pounds for every fight. He had to kill him self in the welsh mountains and starve himself of food to make weight, in order to fight lowly ranked WBO guys, when they were better fighters at a more comfortable weight.

Yes, Roy wanted big money to drop back down to SMW and fight in Wales.

The onus was on Joe to make the concessions.

I would never criticise anyone for refusing to go to Germany, but he went over for Veit, and he’d have had a title fight against Dariusz.

Showtime were a huge network. They could have gotten him fights at LHW had he have fought in the U.S.

Look who he fought instead.