My Top 10 Fighters of the Decade 2000-2009 (Video)

He was 1990s. Ruiz was his last gasp, 7 years ago. 14-6 is not top ten of the decade.

 

ODL - No!

 

You have to have Wlad in there.

A: Dominant HW of the last 8 years.

B: One of the most dominant champions of all time, with contenders actually ducking him rather than face him.

C: Only two losses in the period, with one of them avenged.

D: Defeated 4 undefeated fighters, defeated 6 title holders, some of them twice and his overall record at the weight is very impressive.

 

That's about right, with movement between Hopkins, Calzaghe, Marquez and Klitschko between 3,4,5,6 acceptable.

 

Put it this way, take away Pacquaio and Mayweather from the reckoning and let's forget the amount of title defenses, the fact that he's undefeated and the fact that he took every title belt in his division away

Name me any other fighter with the exception of Mayweather or Pacquaio who can boast a better list of won fights in 2000-2009 period

B Level Talent: Sheika, Veit, Mkertchyan, Bika, McIntyre, Jones Jr (in the shape he was in)

B+ Level Talent: Byron Mitchell, Woodhall, Lacy

A Level Talent: Kessler, Hopkins

That's 11 solid wins, six of them world class fighters with two of them being elite fighters and multi-time world champions.

Can you name me any other fighter other than Mayweather or Pacquaio who has as many solid wins?

 

No established fighters, because Wlad keeps beating them all. See the four undefeated challengers that he's beaten and the multiple once defeated fighters he's beaten, let alone champions.

You're biased towards American known fighters with an obvious dislike of European fighters.

 

I agree with your points more than you know, that Hopkins and Calzaghe had very similar careers with a few fights that differentiate them.

I'd consider beating Trinidad at Middleweight about the same level of accomplishment as defeating Kessler at Super Middle.

Why? Joe gave away size and reach to Kessler, he was the much older fighter and he was near the end of his career. Kessler has since gone on and recaptured his title belts twice, including beating undefeated Carl Froch.

Trinidad faded away after his loss to Hopkins, much in the same way Lacy faded away after his loss to Calzaghe.

But.. taking into account that three of Hopkins best ever victories came immediately before (Winky, Tarver) or immediately after (Pavlik) lets us know that terming Hopkins as an "old fighter" is silly. The guy was still world class when he faced Calzaghe and lets not forget, Calzaghe was one fight away from retirement at the time - they were two old fighters fighting each other, still good enough to beat anyone else between 160-175 in my view.

Also, Hopkins didn't go from 160 to 175 - he went from 160 to 170 and then to 175. He also skipped the most dominant champion (other than him) by moving past 168 when Calzaghe was there.

Because of this - I consider Hopkins to be a much bigger win for Calzaghe than any win Hopkins has. Considering Kessler and Trinidad to be about equal, you're left with much of a muchness in the rest of their career, the victory over Hopkins (that 80% of the media had Calzaghe winning, that I scored 114-113 on the night and 115-112 on subsequent viewings) gives him the advantage and edge over Hopkins in my view.

But like I say, there are several fighters you can argue about as #3 - I could make just as strong of an argument for Wlad.

 

This is wrong.

You see, in 2001, Hopkins agreed with Don King that he would fight Calzaghe for a guarantee of $3 million so long as the fight was in America and shown on American prime time. Being that the fight itself wasn't expected to make much more than $3 million, he didn't expect that Calzaghe would say yes.

Calzaghe said yes, Hopkins then refused to fight for less than $6 million. To give you some perspective, Hopkins only made $800k against Trinidad and $2.5 against De La Hoya.

Source? Don King himself.