Sven Ottke Most Protected Fighter?

Context Mighty. Context.

Calzaghe had a far better resume than Ottke.

Reid gave Joe a tough fight. He battered Ottke and got completely robbed in one of the worst decisions I've ever seen.

 

kessler had a belt and clearly achieved a lot more than ottke did.
who was the best dane out of the three?

 

very protected?
he made his mark in SMW in the tournament and he was in obscurity before that.
fast forward a few months and he's the best SMW in the world.

 

calzaghe was clearly better than ottke and his resume was better, but beyond SMW there are plenty of questions to be asked.

 

Wha

What do you mean by beyond SMW there plenty of questions?

 

I didn't say Ottke was better fighter or had better resume you dickhead. Ottke was talented and skilled fighter. His defense/fight ratio is one of the best ever.

 

he waited until jones and hopkins were dethroned, past prime and losing as many as they were winning before conquering a bogus 'fear of flying' and finally crossing the pond to make the fight happen.

 

because...?

 

Not really.
Joe was at the end of his career and passed his prime himself.
Hopkins would still be winning belts at light Heavy after the fight with Joe so I don't accept the narrative that he was old and done when he fought for another seven years and only losing badly right at the end of his career.
Roy was passed prime still good enough to beat B & C level guys. I think for Joe there were big names to cap of his career.
There had been attempts to make the fights before but they didn't pan out.
The reality is there were small windows of opportunity for some fights to be made considering the other two were campaigning at different weights. I think Joe fought who he could when available. you can level the accusation of home fighting at people like Ottke and Ward as well.
Looking objectively Joe's career sags somewhat in the middle but that to me was just lack of elite competition being available at the time.

 

i don't agree that there was a small window of opportunity to make these fights.
floyd - canelo was a legit small window of opportunity, but jones and hopkins were a division above and below joe, and he genuinely used a bogus 'fear of flying' to avoid the US.
we know this because joe use to fly to mauritius for family holidays.
@Brighton bomber said something about this referring to joe's biography, but i can't remember what it was.

joe was at the end of his career too, but had just come off a career-best win against mikkel kessler, and even though i consider hopkins his best win overall, it was still a split decision aganst a man in his mid-40's.

 

By beating opponents who already had lost vs Ottke for sure.

Yeah, it was a shame, anyway, germans had learned a lot from british boxing: refs helping A side lads, biased judges cares were famous attributes in U.K boxing long before this Ottke had first pro fight.

British boxing is famous with so called british stoppage and refs assisting their boxers a lot. Judges cards too might happen to be famous.

Why Germans can't learn this game? They afforded to learn.

 

Then I respectfully disagree. The Hopkins win is a solid win and the spit decision is meaningless as Hopkins had moments but most of the fight did very little. That's like saying Floyd v Canelo with one judge scoring it a draw. It means nothing as most people know how the fight went.
Yes Bernard was 43 but he still beat Pavlik (Being a massive underdog) Pascal. Cloud. Winning belts with the last two.
I said he could have gone abroad a little sooner but against who?
Any of the big names were at different weights. It's not like the US was a powerhouse at Super Middle at the time it wasn't. Most fighters in the US used Super Middle as a stepping stone.
The only person you could say he should have fought was Ottke but considering that Reid battered Ottke and got completely robbed would you risk your belts to go fight in Germany?

 

good post.
and i agree completely, one of the big problems was that the US simply wasn't interested in the SMW division because, until andre ward arrived, they didn't have anyone to cheer about.
lacy was to calzaghe what bute was to froch - two over-rated fighters who got exposed when they actually stepped up.
again, i have nothing but praise for calzaghe at SMW, but being and remaining a frank warren fighter for as long as he did, sabotaged any chance he had to be compared to the very best, because it guaranteed that he never got the chance to fight the best when it mattered.

 

Hopkins maybe could go aboard. I don't know.
Roid Jones with european PEDs testing? Nope. His Olympic version I sure had passed tests clean, bulked up version no.

Ottke while proteceted, not likely was allowed to juice up.
Why? Cos for Germany pro boxing isn't and wasn't No1 or No2 money bringing sport. Germans even had heavily penalized their own atlhetes who get medals just cos small traces of peds. light athletic athletes too.

 

Accept Kessler and Hopkins are far better than anything on Ottke's resume.

Who? Johnson & Brewer? both are worse than the shop worn Reid who battered Ottke and who Joe fought prime.
I'm not defending UK judging as times it can be fair and times with certain fighters they get complete gifts and bs stoppages.
Germany is no slouch in this regard. It maybe only the last 20 years but it was never anywhere as big as it was in the UK.
The fanbase is not even comparable between the two countries.