Calzaghe gets badly beaten and stopped. Partly because Spinks is bigger (although not by a lot), but mainly because he is simply a much better prize-fighter.
I'm sorry but I dont see Joe going the full 15. I see Mike hurting him to the body and taking him out by around eight
Spinks, of course. He’s on the short list of best light heavyweights ever. Wasn’t the Hopkins fight for the LHW championship?
It would have been a good stylistic match up, but Micheal would have been heavily favoured. There’s a few people here that’s queried the weight. However, there’s nothing wrong with pitting them at LHW. Michael was a LHW, back in the days of a same day weigh-in and no SMW division. After rehydrating from a day before weigh-in at SMW, Joe weighed as much as a LHW on fight night. Joe would certainly have been a LHW back in Michael’s era. Joe was a big guy, coming down from around 200 pounds for each fight.
In his autobiography, Joe said he was exhausted after 4 rounds against Eubank, because he'd burnt so much nervous energy on the day of the fight he'd only rehydrated to 172lbs, whereas at SMW he usually rehydrated to 178-180lbs on fight night. I agree with you, I'd favour Spinks too, but not because Joe didn’t have much experience at LHW. Weigh in conditions were different when Spinks and Calzaghe fought. Calzghe may well have been marginally heavier in the ring when competing at SMW, than Spinks was at LHW. I suspect on average, Calzaghe was facing heavier men, or at least roughly equal in the ring weight, at SMW than Spinks was at LHW, too.