Do you currently have Calzaghe or Buchanan higher in your British ATG list?

I personally rate John Conteh greater than Joe Calzaghe but then hey <<<<<

No contest in my opinion, how anyone, I forget who it was in this thread, can say Ken looked poor on film is beyond me. What the **** do you want. I always say, in certain fights, and this goes for every fighter, consider the tangibles and intangibles of every event. I actually had an actually pretty knowledgable 'friend' who said to me he regards Ricky Hatton as the greatest boxer he has seen on film, far superior than Ken. Of course I told him his opinion is invalid as he has Turpin top of his all timers.

This subject is so worn out its tiring, we'll always have those who discredit Ken, and Joe for a matter, but he was sensational in his prime. Not best of all time standard, but an all time great none the less, no doubt about that. He will always be appreciated more in the US than over here, where I forget which magazine it was but it had the writer recall an event where an excited American after watching the Laguna II fight was hailing the Scot as the second coming of Robinson. Okay, thats a little overboard, but the general feeling is in his prime, he was a terrific technician and not out of place amongst pound for pounders.

The main thing I see is, a lot of great British wins have been where the UK boxer has fought out of his skin and beat the International, but prime for prime and pound for pound, they generally weren't as good as the boxer they beat despite there monumental efforts. i.e. Laing over Duran, Stracey over Napoles.

Kens win was different. He wasn't just a Brit giving the performance of his life for one night, I truly believe he was that good. Ken was as great if not better than Laguna. And Lagunas defining fights sit proudly on my harddrive as stellar performances by a world class operator.

But anyway, not that any of you will listen, and some will probably lambaste this post. Oh how I don't miss ESB sometimes.

 

I don't get all this reinvention of Buchanan. You can't just say he would have ruled for years. He made only two defences of his world title and was well beaten by Duran. Also he was well beaten in a European title fight before he won the WBA title. Crapped on his legacy with his constant comebacks too.

 

calzaghe isn't even in my ATG list.

 

Not even your British ATG list? :think

 

how many comebacks...........1 was a protest before he won the title and he made 1 in 79 or so and a go on the unlicensed circuit which doesn't count.
so 1 comeback then:good

 

nope. his record has rightly had a hammering recently and it doesn't look crash hot.

how many fighters in their prime did he beat convincingly?

 

He beat lots of fighters in their prime but the question is how many great fighters. I'm not Calzaghe's biggest fan but he definitely is a British ATG, there is no doubt about that. I agree he could have moved up to light-heavy earlier and fought Johnson, Tarver and a closer to prime Jones Jr but the fact he dominated at super-middle must count for something.

The thing that really annoys me is that he gets little to no credit for beating Lacy these days, at the time he was given no chance and he took him apart like an amateur and put on a boxing clinic, although it is true Lacy has since been proved mediocre I do believe Calzaghe took something from Lacy that night that he never got back. Eubank wasnt that far past prime when he beat him, 31 isnt that old, he was still a big threat and Calzaghe was on his way up, that was a risky fight.

Add to that Hopkins who proved he was still world class by beating Pavlik and an unbeaten Kessler, probably not as good as advertised but at the time he was considered a genuine threat, one loss and all of a sudden hes ****.

Having said all that I do place Buchanan above Calzaghe, but not by much. His two wins over a prime Ismael Laguna and Donny Paduano are a bit better than Calzaghe's best wins.

 

Yeah-Calzaghe is a little underappreciated at the moment (although I do rate Buchannan a little higher myself).
People forget he was the first person to beat Lacy and Kessler. Would Ward have been so confident against MK if Calzaghe hadn't show everyone how to do it?
As for Lacy, I think you need a certain strength of character to ignore the ridculous hype and put on such an exhibition. The experts at the time (especially the american ones) were giving Calzaghe no chance!

 

:good i should have put 'top' in there.

He ruined lacy without a doubt and kessler was a good win but he also has tudwill pucker or whatever the ****ers name was and various other nuggets in there.

 

This is an old debate and one that i can't be arsed getting into too much. Calzaghe's greatness was an accident and a coincidence of his great talent and monumental efforts to avoid any sort of real 'world class' challenge until the division and surrounding divisions were almost empty in terms of talent.

Calzaghe was better then I think he or his team believed. He might have had half a chance against a prime Jones- he was certainly heavy handed and fast enough to give him his hardest test since Toney.

Against the 46 opponents that Calzaghe fought at the time he fought them Benn, Collins, Eubank and Jones in their primes would have gone 46-0 as well. Calzaghe's longevity and consitancy was a big plus but he generally never perfomed at anywhere near the levels Eubank, Collins and Benn managed on their finest nights.

As for Jones... at his very best he may as well have been practicing a completely different sport such is the gulf in class between them.

 

I doubt Eubank would have gone 46-0 with Calzaghe's opposition, he got some very dubious decisions over mediocre fighters, if you was to say he would be favourite for every fight then I'd go along with that but I could see him dropping a decision or two, I'm not certain Benn would have come out unscathed either. I agree with everything else though, especially about Jones being far superior, in his prime he was something to behold. Calzaghe should have taken more risks, I think even going 45-1 against a prime Jones would have earnt him more respect.

 

This bit. :good

 

Cant agree there mate, Tyson of 88 would have walked through them imo. The Tyson that came out of prison was a whole different shape from the Kid of the late 80's. He could keep his work up for 12 rounds when he had to (Tyson never lost a single fight on points)