I really don't rate Calzaghe what about yous?

I'd have to say, pit any Supermiddle against Joe, and I'd probably put money on him to win every time.
May not be perfect or pretty but more than likely his hands raised at the end.

 

My prevailing memory of Calzaghe was him pulling out of one of his big fights with a "hand injury" when in reality it was because he got K.O'd in a Cardiff nightclub for hitting on someone's girlfriend.

 

You keep saying "false equivalency" but it does not mean what you think it mean because they were BOTH drained. They BOTH sucked themselves down from the weight above.. That is the equivalency. What can you not understand about that??

In Eubanks case he drained down on only TWO weeks notice.. Do you understand how that would effect him on the night? You don't.
That weight drain could clearly be seen in his performance. He was completely knackered and had to hold on after every punch he threw. He fought like a drunken street fighter. He was useless.

Furthermore , Eubank did not have a good win at 168 in about 5 years. He left the weight two years earlier after losing to Steve Collins twice.
After dropping down to 168 from 175 on two weeks notice , he went straight up to Cruiserweight which shows exactly how much weight he starved off himself to take the Calzaghe fight.

You called Eubank a "high end win". No win under these circumstances can be labelled a top win. For the same reason Chad Dawson isn't a top level win for Ward. Your argumentation is exposing your hypocrisy and double standards. I don't think you know what you're talking about. .

 

It should also be said that Dawson was closer to his peak than Eubank.

 

Even Calzaghe admitted he didn't want "hard right" at that point in his career.

 

Let's see Mayweather and Marciano get praised til the cows come home home because of there 0 but Joe doesn't rate? Hmmm

 

He is one of those fighters who ranks higher head to head, than he does in terms of resume.

His career was blighted by hand problems, and the average boxing fan often doesn't realize how bad they were.

He had no choice but to pick his fights carefully.

 

I've never been that audacious, frankly. Never dreamt that big.

 

my absolute hero as a kid/teenager.

never challenged himself early enough in his career.
would probably funnily be respected more if he'd have been mashed by RJJ in the late 90s/early 00s in some quarters than he is now.
probably loses to a fresher hopkins and gets beaten handily by jones (but who doesn't). but that shouldn't detract from how immense his win over hopkins is. 'going away' and winning is greatly undervalued in boxing for some reason.
of the brits he is by far the superior 168. i think he utterly demolishes benn and froch, come forward fighters are his bread and butter. beats eubank at his prime, eubank is just too inactive. watson could have been fun. mikey was a canny operator.
his win over lacy is laughably underrated now. i have never witnessed so much jingoistic vitriol going into a fight from stateside in my life. you would think calzaghe was facing a geezer with a pump action shotgun in his corner the way people were going on. people for good reason ignore that now. that was a schooling from another planet.

one of those who could have done it in the 15 round era no issue. tremendous boxing iq, one of the best. elite footwork and tremendous handspeed. worryingly susceptible to a straight right, see mikkel, robin, bernard.

didn't do enough to be an overall atg in my opinion. had an almost uniquely skillset. not many you could say 'oh he'd 100% win, i'll put my life savings on it' if they were paired with calzaghe on their best night.

an odd guy and boxer to critique. love him tho.

 

I believe it was 11 days.

 

Come on now.

Joe has the superior SMW resume based on numbers. But in terms of ability, we didn’t need them to fight to see who was the better guy.

Roy easily beat Toney.

He easily beat Malinga, knocking him out with ease.

He toyed with Lucas after playing semi-pro basketball.

He then moved up and beat guys at LHW who were better than the majority of Joe’s SMW opponents.

Joe barely beat Reid.

Roy was on another level to Joe back then.

 

Yeah.

Roy was obviously terrified of dropping down to SMW to pursue a relatively unknown WBO holder, who’d struggled to beat Robin Reid and who’d beaten Omar Sheika, Mario Veit and Will McIntyre.

Terrified.

 

I think he was one of the best super middles, though to be fair that division hasn’t been around for that many decades. He beat some good fighters and retired undefeated.

 

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This quote from Joe from 18 months ago speaks volumes:

“I’d have beaten Froch. I’d have beaten any SMW in history. But maybe not Roy Jones in his prime”