Gianni Rosi 62-6-1, 18KO's Sven Ottke 34-0, 6KO's The 2 most protected hometurf boxers I can think of against each other, both as featherfisted as they come, in Italy in a size 24 ring at 160lbs (prior day weighin). Both in their primes (if it were possible), for the IBF Ultra Protected Middleweight Championship of Germany and Italy. So the odds stacked in Gianni's advantage (like he's used to), only he has to fight at a weight he actually only fought at the end of his career, normally he would fight at 154. Will Ottke overcome fighting so far, far, far away from home, and fighting at MW instead of SMW?
Yeah, Ottke was protected that why he unified and took on the best smws of his time but Calzaghe and his stablemate Beyer. So protected ...
Not by opposition, the circumstances in wich they faced them. Gianni fought van Horn, Dele, Wolfe and Philips, no pushovers in any book. But in Italy with all cards stacked in his advantage... Ottke in Germany with the same advantages.
Jones and Calzaghe didn't rely on hometown decisions so much, no decision or partial referee scandals like these two. But it doesn't matter, I chose these guys... Everything 'stacked' the Italian way, so it would be him or another ref just like him!
This would end in tragedy. Ottke would have a heart attack when he discovered opponents were allowed to hit him.
I can´t say much about Rosi because I´m not too familiar with him but the Ottke-thing is very, very overblown due to the Reid fight.
he lost a couple of decisions and got a win how can anyone defend Ottke. He was a joke. Im still convinced Mundine took a dive. Ottke was a decent fighter but you cant take any of his career seriously because of some of the farces involved in his fights. The reid fight ended up being fairly close at the end but even so Reid had probably given up - Didnt he have a knockdown called a slip? and was warned for punching Ottke in the face! its a long time since i watched the fight but Ried was down on the cards after 4 and im pretty sure he was winning comfortably at this point. When his corner told him he was down he couldnt belive it. 117-112 one of the scores was given as how?!?