Would Andre Ward win a single round against Calzaghe ?

I’m honestly looking forward to catching up on it tonight.

I’m on page 75.

It’s essential night time reading for me.

Ha!

 

Yeah my post wasn't intended to be controversial or disrespectful, so i apologize to anyone if it came across that way. I have nothing against Joe Calzaghe, he was a fantastic fighter and a great talent, my only argument is that i think he wasted quite a bit of his career with lackluster fights.

Some might say "well he doesn't have to move up to Light Heavyweight" and in all honestly that is a valid point. But i do think some bigger fights could of been made at Light Heavyweight.

I think later in Calzaghe's career, he also missed out on fighting Kelly Pavlik when he was red hot, which would of been a very winnable fight for Calzaghe and a nice name on his resume.

I just think overall for the talent Calzaghe had, it was wasted alot with lackluster defences. I'm not saying it was all his fault, it was bad timing his era came after the exciting Benn, Watson, Eubank, Collins, era. But i do think maybe he could of pushed a bit more for bigger fights, and maybe he could of travelled earlier.

 

Yeah I did and I saw Calzaghe do a much better job on Sakio than Ward did.

Calzaghe wouldn't be slowed down by Wards jab and grab as Calazaghe was brilliant at adapting during fights.
Zags UD

 

Well he was coming in 2002 but Nard crapped his panties after agreeing to fight then asking for double over night (6mill)
Calzaghe fought in Denmark Germany England Scotland, US, Wales etc..
Remind me where all the US SM fighters fought?

 

You are missing out some key details here sir, such as the involvement of boxings greatest money swindler Don King himself who was Hopkins promotor at the time a potential Hopkins-Calzaghe clash was being discussed. Here's what Bernard Hopkins had to say according to Gareth Jones:-

Don King saw boxing promotion similar to the pimp game... and there are similarities between the two no doubt.. Hopkins saying team Calzaghe can probably make a deal with him if they were negotiating with him alone, along with Don King's history of ripping of his fighters... its somewhat a good enough indication that that $3 million wasn't all going into BHops pocket.

Ontop of that who is to say Jay Larkin was a trustworthy, loyal, truthful, precise, God fearing, Lawful, righteous man of the people... Jay Larkin could have been misinterpreted and the story now goes Hopkins rejected $3Million... there's more to it.

 

It's valid upto a point. my counter would be as you say following a strong early to mid 90's era for British/Irish at Super Middle Joe walked into a weaker era.

I think the only decent fight would have been Ottke who we know stayed at home and had the judges in his back pocket.
So that's high risk and low reward considering Reid got completely shafted.

When we look at many of the other paper champs over that frame most held the belts for a fairly short period and Joe did fight quite a few of them.

So then it comes back to moving up. I don't think it's a very strong argument because you could level that critique at a boxers at the lower weights but I only see it levelled at Joe which to me is not logically consistent.

We have to measure on what they did rather than what they could of done because it's judgement without evidence.

The fact he did his last couple of fights at Light Heavy was to get a couple of big names when he was well past his prime himself and getting the weight down was obviously hard to do in his mid 30's.

I don't think some of those guys would have taken a fight with Joe years before and that's proven by Hopkins giving it a wide berth.

The likes of Roy and Tony were well into moving up those divisions by the time Joe was hitting his prime.

So I'm struggling to understand were these perceived big fights were. Yeah Pavlik would have been a good scrap but hardly a career payday.

I think the issue for some is considering his talent he could have done more. I just don't think it would have added that much to his legacy if I'm honest.

 

Good day to you bailey. This is what Joe Calzaghe had to say according to a BBC article:-

This quote from a BBC article in 2002 up until that point Calzaghe knew deep down inside himself that he has fought mainly bums and scrubs so he admittingly stated he never had beaten a great fighter. The very next fighter Calzaghe fought after this Calzaghe quote was the main man Tocker Pudwill himself.

 

I guess you could say Calzaghe was just slightly in wrong era, had his career started a bit earlier he could of had huge domestic fights with Benn, Watson, younger Eubank, and some of the other big American fighters who frequented Super Middleweight.

And had Calzaghe started his career bit later, he could of been involved in Super Six tournament. Which would of done wonders for his legacy.

 

That's my position exactly. Too late for one era and too early for the next.

 

Bika was a tough out for everybody.

He was very physical.

Very dirty.

Both Andre and Joe had a hard night with him.

Yes, of course Andre could have slowed him down.

It would have been a genuine 50/50 night.

I think it would have played out in a similar fashion to the Hopkins fight.

Andre would have thrown much less shots, but I think they’d have been of higher quality.

For me, the Hopkins fight was quality vs quantity.

 

Joe certainly gets sympathy for falling in between those 2 eras.

It’s such a shame.

A few years either side could have given us some great fights.


I have Joe beating Eubank, Benn, Watson and Collins, with Eubank being the hardest.

I have Joe beating Froch, Bute, Dawson and Pavlik, with an Andre Ward fight being a true 50/50 fight.

I’m also in the minority who thinks that Joe would have beaten Sergei Kovalev.

He was a special fighter.

However, the criticism of him is justified.


Unless you were around at the time, you won’t realise what it was like.

I was honestly a fan of his growing up. I used to watch all of his fights. I can remember the build up to most of them. I can remember buying Boxing Monthly in 1999, knowing that Showtime were covering the Ricky Thornberry fight. I loved his unique style. I loved his father. I loved the footage of their shed and him running up the mountains. I even liked his cocky persona. He had me as a fan.

I think that most people on here have me down as a hater, as he beat Roy Jones, who everybody knows is my favourite fighter. But that’s not the case. What happened was, I just wisened up to his act. And it was an act. At first, I bought into every interview. I bought into the politics. I bought into the theory that he was being serially ducked and everyone was running scared. But in the end, I worked out that he wasn’t being genuine. And he lost me as a fan. Now if you weren’t around back then, you have to realise that in every build up to every fight, on every TV interview, either pre-fight, post-fight or on the radio etc, it was the same thing over and over:

He wanted career defining fights and was determined to fight the best. He was desperate for them, but he just couldn’t get them secured.

I believed it for years. I watched the documentaries. The appearances on Soccer A.M. etc. I watched it all. Until as a young fan, I said to myself “He’s saying this all of the time, yet he’s doing absolutely nothing in order to try and change his circumstances”


He held a WBO belt which wasn’t a legitimate world title, where he demanded career defining fights against the best P4P fighters in the world, after having fought Omar Sheika.

He then did the same thing after fighting Mario Veit.

He went on Soccer AM and said the same thing, before then fighting Miguel Jimenez.


So I wisened up, and I knew that he himself knew, that unless he changed his circumstances, where he raised his profile and created a demand etc, then these fights were never going to happen.

I realised that he was all talk and it was just an act in order to massage his ego and to starve off some criticism.

In the end, I was proven right. Because he reigned as the WBO champion for a whole decade, where he then bragged of his number of WBO defences, proving to everyone that he was more than content to have fought all of those Euro level fighters.

He never really wanted to fight the best.

The WBO reign was all planned, where he was more than happy with it.


So the truth is:

He was a great fighter, but one who didn’t have a lot of ambition when he was younger.

 

Personally, I think that a Pavlik fight would have generated a lot of PPV revenue.

Joe was highly rated after having beaten Lacy, Kessler and Hopkins.

Pavlik was seen as a very exciting fighter, after having had 2 exciting fights with Taylor.

 

Calzaghe was a ATG fighter who made a lot of racist haters get all bent out of shape and seething in anger, bitterness, jealousy and entitlement. These "fans" wanted Joe Calzaghe to be like them (loser's) but Calzaghe never lost in the ring, not even once.

 

What's wrong with saying he hasn't beaten a great fighter after 5 years pro? Not many ppl have... dickhead .. and please will you people be more original the pudwill one is old now everybody knows he was a last minute replacement , hardly the Welsh lads fault his opponent pulled out is it.. hed still beat Eubank, Reid, Woodhall, Brewer, Ferrerya, Sheika etc by that point.. which absolutely shits on the resume of any current top 10 SMW fighting right now .. it's funny you all here arguing over Calzaghe and trying to denigrate him but what's the point ... the guys in the hall of fame and his Legacy is secure.. hes an ATG SMW. Its not even arguable, the only thing you're proving is hes still living rent free in your head. The guys a great fighter, you aint gunna change that

 

It wasn’t after 5 years as a pro.

It was after 9 years as a pro.

Then he didn’t fight Kessler or Hopkins until 2007 and 2008, which was 5-6 years after his admission.

Nobody is hating on him.

We’re just pointing out that he was a great fighter, but one who had little ambition for the majority of his career.

His 10 year WBO reign was weak. And it didn’t happen out of bad luck. He was more than happy with it.

He was far too good to be fighting a guy like Mario Veit twice.