First of all B-Hops age at the time of their fight is not as big a deal as it sounds. Hopkins is still featured in many top 5 P4P lists and beat Pavlik afterwards - sure Pavlik is no where near Joe's quality but he is highly rated in America. Joe was pretty old at the time of the fight and on the brink of retirement - he was not where near his prime. Hopkins is stil fighting. And yeah, if Hopkins did not pull his duck in 2002 I am sure Joe would have beaten him. Prime RJJ is something else and would have been a great fight.
why is everyone forgetting joe went out of his way to make the fight with hopkins in 2002, the fight was agreed then hopkins pulled out of the fight in the last moment.... hopkins ducked calzaghe in 02
As much as you'd like to think this is the truth, I'm afraid it isn't quite so. Yes Joe's team did propose a fight with both Jones and Hopkins back in the day, but did you know what the offer included? They expected them to come over here to fight in the UK. That's right, two fighters at the top of the world were being asked to come to the hometown of a nobody. So no my friend, that doesn't constitute as ducking. It's called doing what any other boxer would have done.
and they expected hopkins to receive only 3 million dollars for the fight while calzaghe got 6 million.
In Hopkins case I seem to recall reading that to go to the U.K. he wanted 3 mil, which was agreed, then he changed his mind and wanted 6 mil. The next fight Hopkins had, I then read he didnt get even half of what he first wanted. If this is true im surprised he didnt want to take the fight, but this may not be accurate. As for Calzaghe, I dont think he ducked anyone but didnt always do things right. According to Ottkes trainer, Ottke did not want to fight Calzaghe which was another fight Calzaghe wanted, but who at SMW did Calzaghe really avoid, he beat Reid, Woodhall, Eubank, Mitchell, Lacy & Kessler etc, you can only judge fighters on there careers as to where they are at the time when someone fights them ie When Joe fought Lacy he was undefeated and favoured to beat Joe. Kessler also undefeated WBC & WBA champ, you could say Calzaghe ruined these fighters. I dont think Calzaghe will get any due credit as for some reason people seem to think if you dont fight in America you cant be any good, Im not sure why, defences are defences
there are more posts complaining about negative joe calzaghe comments then there are negative joe calzaghe comments