calzaghe is clearly better than ottke but he wont be overrated except by people who want him to put him on a pedestal.
Ottkes continued looking to the ref for assistance about every 15 seconds in the Reid fight showed he had no integrity. I call it cheating plain and simple.
ONE shitty fight. Reid should have won that. No excuse. But that was the only robbery. Woh many robberies does ODH have....? Just stop that biased nonsense....
In terms of records, obviously Calzaghe's looks better... he actually left his country to fight in opponents backyards on numerous occasions. Ottke did not. They have similar title defences against on average, similar quality opponents - the one major difference is that Calzaghe moved to 175 where he beat the man who beat the man in his own backyard. There's no doubt Calzaghe has the better record. It would have been a very interesting chess match to match between them though. Sven gets under-rated here.
The fights Joe did AFTER Sven retired made his record better than Svens. But at the time both were active Ottke had a slight edge. Calzaghe afaik only left his homeland for some of his last fights. Against Veit in 2005 (no thread for Calzaghe) was the only time he fought outside of the UK before his last two fights. Ottke fought in Austria in 1997 but that was it.
You're forgetting his fights against Reid, Starie, Woodhall, Eubank, Delaney etc when he fought English fighters in England. He got pretty hot receptions there. Calzaghe didn't have that strong a following at these fights, people were still a bit unsure about him. Facing an English boxer in England when you're quite a cocky guy isn't exactly welcoming.
Ok, I didn´t realize that it was a big deal for a welshmen to fight in england. But if you say so I believe you
It's not as bad for a Welshman to fight in England as it would be for an Englishman to fight in Wales or a German or American to fight in the UK but Calzaghe got soundly booed, jeered and even spat at on his ringwalk for some of those fights.
:shock: the united kingdom is full of strange wonders :shock: I should go and visit more parts than only southern england :yep
Did someone call the "Ottke sucked" hotline? Please explain why... and please spare the Reid and the corrupt german robbery boxing part...