To anwser the op's question Hameds reign has greater depth of opponent but Calzaghe had more success when he stepped up a level, ie squeeking past Hopkins when Hamed was clearly outscored by MAB. I'd say Hamed had the better wbo reign but I'd rate Calzaghe p4p higher overall. Thats if I ever did p4p lists.
"Following the Bungu fight Hamed finally offered to fight long time WBO number one challenger, Juan Manuel Marquez. Marquez turned down the fight saying that he wanted more money." - http://boxrec.com/media/index.php?title=Human:4462 Looks like more terrible business dealings from Marquez's camp.
I never said Hamed ducked any of them..... but you only have to look at the record and see that those fights didn't happen. For what it's worth, he might have had half a chance with both Pacquiao back in the day and Marquez.... I think Morales is as wrong for him if not more so than Barrera.
What makes you think Lacy was an "excellent fighter" in the run up to fighting Calzaghe? Who had Lacy beat? A hyped fighter, yes. An excellent one, get out of town! The reality is that Jeff Lacy was a paper champion who'd gone life and death with Omar Shieka and really only had one good win against a past-it Robin Reid.
What about him? Sheika never had a title and wasn't even ranked inside the Top Ten at SMW. Two years before he fought Calzaghe, Sheika lost to a guy with a 28-44-7 record! Yeah, he beat Glen Johnson at 168. And Johnson's record at 168 is absolutley dire.
I'm not sure that Morales is a worse fight for him to be honest. If Erik boxed like we all know he could then aye I reckon he could have made a relatively easy nights work of Nas, however his well documented love of a tear up could have been his downfall against someone with the freakish power of Nas.
Don't forget to mention that he needed a hometown ref in the Roger Tilleman/Dave Parris mould to assist him against Reid. Not only did he floor Reid (who was looking at the ref) looooonnng after a break had been called, but his plan seemed to be to target Robin's knackers from the get go.
Well of course not. Thats down to Roy Jones. Think him and Toney would've been the two best contenders though and it would've been great to see all these fighters like Calzaghe,Toney,Reid,Ottke,Rochigiani,Hill,Michelczewski,Johnson,Tarver and Woods having to fight each other to secure a title shot. Damn those alphabet ****s and their paper titles!!!:twisted:
Oh christ yes that was disgraceful!:-( I'd forgotten about that. Blatant bias and corruption. Reid got the short end a bit in his career.
Can't think of another British fighter who has suffered as badly at the hands of officials. I was having an argument with Bodhi a while back, stating that I believed his career wouldn't have petered out in the manner it did if he had got the decision he deserved against Ottke. For a start he might've got to fight Lacy at home, and he certainly wouldn't have believed he had to stand toe to toe with Lacy in order to court the judges favour. All these years later and i'm still bitter.