The names missing from Joe Calzaghe's CV

:good

 

Ottke is the obvious choice, maybe Beyer aswell, although he was never that good to be fair.

It will always be a shame he never fought Woods, i know it wouldnt be a major fight world wide, but Woods was a british world champion the weight above Joe and it made sense, even though the fight would be one sided.

 

I think the problem with Calzaghe's resume is not how bad it is, because it is very reasonable.....

But there are guys that he would have beaten that are missing.... replaced by guys that weren't really fit to share the same town, never mind ring as Calzaghe.

Woods would have taken Calzaghe for free, no trash talking or any of that - he would have done.

A DM fight could have been made at 175 - Calzaghe would have gone to Germany as well, there would be no dodgy SD because both guys were good enough to win the fight outright.

If you substitute these two for say................

The Veit rematch
Bika/Manfredo

His resume looks a lot deeper already - with two LHW champs on it.

 

ducked Glen Johnson as well so throw that in there....

 

Collins didn't fight Calzaghe first time around because he wanted Roy Jones Jr instead. The fight was supposed to take place around 1999 but a brain scan on Collins revealed that a punch to head might kill him so he was forced to retire.

 

Collins had been chasing Roy for a while before he retired in 1997.

He crashed one of his press conferences and started spouting off - because he reckoned Jones was chinny.

 

TWICE :deal

 

Not still beating this dead horse are you?

As I believe I've explained to you before, if a fighter from one weight division for some reason wants to not fight a fighter from a division above, then that's really a spectacularly easy task. They just don't fight them. They don't talk about fighting them, and they certainly don't actually arrange a fight against them.

What they don't do is arrange a fight against them then, when they are forced to pull out through injury, re-arrange the fight. Then try to re-arrange again after the second fight is called off.

 

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Good post pretty much summed up what i was thinking:good

 

calzaghe missed out on a lot of fights.

warren said recently he had to cancel 12 fights during the time he controlled calzaghe , so calzaghe would have been a lot further on and perhaps faced bigger names sooner if he had fitted in those fights.

biggest blank IMO considering calzaghe is a career 168 fighter is ottke.

warren should have burst the bank to got that fight made , perhaps with joint tv rights .

warren never made a serious offer.
1 million is not a serious offer from warren , ottke was highly paid in germany getting paid $12,000,000 approx for his 4 fights a year in todays money.

it would have had to be a $4 million to 5 million offer to be serious.

calzaghe ducked glen johnson at light heavy before he unified at 168.

johnson as a 168 fighter was easily outboxed by ottke
struggled brawling v sheika
outboxed by branco
lost to some unknown african in a fight i did not see.

he was simply seen as an opponent for 168 fighters and had to move up to light heavy where the shock win over ulrich, got him back in the picture.

calzaghe could have moved up earlier/gone to america and fought ????? at light heavy while waiting for a shot at jones that might or might not have turned up.

he would have lost a fair bit of money fighting in front of one man and his dog waiting for a chance at jones, but it is the only way it could have happened earlier.

 

What is your justification for saying Warren 'should' have burst the bank for Ottke?

It's doubtful Ottke would have left Germany anyway.

Would it make a great deal of difference to your view if Calzaghe had had a bigger offer turned down, or do you think Ottke would have come to the UK for 4 million quid?

I'm assuming you don't mean that Warren should have paid 4 million for the privilege of sending Calzaghe to Germany to be screwed over and lose his title. That would neither have added to his resume or his chances of improving it in the future.

 

Ottke and Beyer are the main ones missing as far as I am concerned - the only significant (as in long-reiging, multiple reign or very highly rated) titlists not on his record at 168. Forget Johnson, he was just a clubfighter at 168 until he moved onto the slightly easier pastures at 175.

I'm also not a fan of this "he might have got robbed" gubbins for any fighter - if the right offer is on the table then I think fighters have the responsibility to be prepared to travel to meet their peers, or at least make a good enough counter offer to persuade the other fighter to travel to meet them. I therefore hold both fighters partly responsible for the Ottke fight not happening, though Ottke slightly more as his camp seemed less willing to hold discussions.