Better resume: Calzaghe at 168 or Hopkins at 160?

No one knew about Calzaghe before the Lacy fight either, what's your point?, this isn't a popularity contest.

DLH made it to 160 and was a champion there regardless of how people thought of the Sturm fight. DLH was in there completely out of shape and made it close. Trinidad was coming off a brutal early KO of Joppy in a fight MANY thought Trinidad would lose.

Duran is a former super bantamweight, Leonard is a former Jr. Welter and Hearns is a former Welter. Those three are Hagler's biggest wins, does that mean he sucks too and Calzaghe rates above him?

 

trinada didn't really have an easy fight with ried and vargas he won but it wasn't easy. Cheriffi ...:verysad and hopkins was just a natural MW ttio was not and it showed . attribute also to the fact that hopkins tookaway his left hook. it was a great win. nut the fact is tito moved up in Weight. kessler did not he had established along dominec and wen through 5 top 10 fghters collecting 2 belt b4 fighting Joe. their careers are very similar but i give the edge to joe. but not by much

 

joe beat hopkins clearer then JT sorry .

 

Here's another good fact to add. If both Kessler and Lacy didn't pack their bags and belts and went to Wales it's safe to say those two wouldn't have been on his record either. For someone who has been in the division for SO long to not unify and challenge other fighters raises lots of questions. Lacy comes out of nowhere and grabs the IBF title, Kessler comes out of nowhere and grabs the WBC/WBA titles. Calzaghe was happy with the WBO for years. Hopkins unified the WBC/WBA/IBF/WBO fighting champions.

Hopkins fought against prime RJJ for the vacant IBF title, Calzaghe fought a past it Eubank for the WBO title. Jones went on to become a 5 weight division champion all the way to HW, P4P#1 and greatest of his generation. Eubank went on to lose to Carl Thompson twice and retire.

 

I never said otherwise. That fight was at Lt. Heavyweight too, we're discussing their resumes at MW(for Hopkins) and SMW(for Calzaghe).

 

i don't think taylor beat hopkins in either fight and b-hop had him out almost in the last 2 rounds i remeber seeing a young taylor getting a head but and seeing his blood for the first time ithink it was in the 4 or 5 th round after that he didn't do so well. but IMO joe clearly beat B-hop.

 

I had the first fight either for Hopkins or a draw, a draw is more reasonable. The rematch though was a clear, yet close, UD for Taylor.

I would say, at least in my eyes/opinion, Calzaghe/Hopkins was a close yet clear UD for Calzaghe like JT/Hopkins II. I'm NOT comparing both performances or JT with Calzaghe so don't take it that, just comparing "close yet clear UD victories".

 

yeah osh ****




yeah but joe never lost at smw. and B-hop was a great MW just he wasn't noticed untill he fought smaller fighters. really it's almost a paper thin margin but if b-hop wins the CW title against Adamek he'll pass joe IMO

 

He's beyond Joe in my opinion. Hopkins went from MW to Super middleweight to fight Tarver as a HUGE underdog. Hopkins has been the underdog in his last 4 fights. Joe Calzaghe laughed at the idea of moving to America for any fight considering his self the "man" at SMW whilst holding on to the WBO title yet it made sense for 43 year old Hopkins and beyond shot RJJ. Too many question marks for Joe Calzaghe in comparison to Hopkins if you want to make a full argument.

Hopkins unified the titles one after another beating champions, the IBF title was a vacant title fight. The WBC(Keith Holmes), WBA(Felix Trinidad) and WBO(Oscar De La Hoya). Joe Calzaghe didn't unify **** nor did he show any interest in fighting other champions. If Lacy and Kessler didn't pack their bags and literally call out Joe MANY times those fights wouldn't have happened either. Fact is, these guys wanted to unify, he had no desire(as clearly obvious) to do so his self by sticking to the WBO for too long and claiming he's the champ and others should knock on his door. Hey, others were champs too.

Both are A class fighters with ATG abilities, no doubt and both have their share of question marks like all careers, no one is perfect. The question marks surrounding Calzaghe are clearly more, that's all I'm saying. NOT downgrading him or calling him a fraud or any of that nonsense. A fraud doesn't fight Hopkins in his first fight at a new weight and be the first since Jones Jr. to make Hopkins confused, look his age, look extremely slow and desperate.

 

i see. but i had hop wining a close fight in the 2nd fight with JT but it's all good .

who you got in the PBFvs JMM fight what round you got?

i got PBF by ko in 9 str8 right cfollowed by a combo to close the show.

 

ok well thats a solid post i disagree with some points but i respect your opinion

 

Being truely unbiased in this case it's quite close but Calzaghe's resume at 168 is greater than Hopkins at 160.

Both had 20+ defences which is a hell of an achievement in it's own right, both faced a lot of mediocre opposition in that time and both have some very good wins also.

Hopkins best wins at 160 are Johnson, Trinidad and De la Hoya with the latter especially having no business at that weight.

Calzaghe's best wins at 168 are Kessler, Lacy and past his best Eubank.

Close but Joe Calzaghe has the better resume here.

 

Realistically speaking, and from what we know of Hopkins' usual negotiations, wouldn't it be fair to say Bernard wouldn't have accepted fights that weren't on his terms as well? He never fought abroad (with the exception of an early bout with Mercado on the way up) and didn't unify for 5 years himself after getting his IBF title. It took about 8 1/2 years for Calzaghe to do it. Hopkins nixed an earlier contract to fight Calzaghe for a combination of time off and Morrade Hakkar. Had Calzaghe not come to the US, would Bernard ever have traveled to Wales to make the fight happen?

This isn't to excuse the majority of Calzaghe's WBO title reign, as there were more than his fair share of mediocre opposition there. Just some food for thought.

I simply think that the more people try to argue one's so superior to the other, they miss that there's more similarities than differences in their respective championship campaigns. Neither class was necessarily that good during their reigns, each fighter had **** defenses to go along with some solid ones, and each had advantages against the biggest "name" guys they fought- homefield for Calzaghe, size for Hopkins. The only difference is that when there was a big, prime fighter at the end of their title reigns, Calzaghe beat Kessler clearly and Hopkins didn't beat Taylor clearly.

Is that enough to make up for Hopkins fighting a couple more ex/future/current titleholders during his reign? That's all the difference boils down to. That's splitting hairs more closely than I feel like doing at this point in time, so I rank them equally.

 

Hopkins also has wins over Joppy, Keith holmes, Trinidad is a far far better win than Kessler who is hardly a HOF fighter add to that Glenn Johnson Antwun Echols far better

 

If Trinidad had no business at the weight he wouldn't have beat a solid champion like Joppy in his first fight and in devastating fashion. His loss is because he ran into a better fighter not because of weight.

DLH beat Sturm in a close fight being TOTALLY out of shape. Sturm is the current WBA Champion and has been for a while, lost the title once and avenged that loss.

Hopkins also has wins over Johnson, Joppy and Eastman.