Calzaghe fought bums for the most part of his career but it's not his fault....

Yet Ring had Calzaghe and Ottke and other good foreign fighters in their rankings, but because they didn't have JC's 2nd rate competition in there, they are a rag.

You can keep the steroids stuff(even though it was only ripped fuel, an OTC supplement that both he and his opponent tested positive for and, I believe only the IBF had something against out of the 3 sanctioning bodies for that fight).

There have been quite a few threads bashing Calzaghe's competition, some where people like to go overboard the hate, but there are also some where they break things down. Read some. If you think the same type of thread can be made and applied to either Jones or Hopkins, do so.

Calzaghe also gets a lot of **** for not taking chances. Fighting exclusively in a soft division for an obscure belt, never leaving his region, embarrassing early stoppages, 2nd rate competition in what should have been the prime of his career, retiring just when he had stepped up his competition and left his comfort zone and it seemed he could have made a legit impact which would have required some risk taking...... does that not paint enough of a picture for you?

Or do you honestly think he could have found such great competition having all these great fighters coming to the UK to fight for the wbo smw belt?

If he was looking to truly be the best, why not get himself into the mix at lhw some point? That's where the comp was toughest at the time.
.........

95% prime?

Ridiculous.

The guy was a mw in his prime. Watch some of his fights from 97-01 and tell me he was close to prime in 08 or even 05. Most of Hopkins best wins were against smaller guys ......but they were all world class.

Jones and Hopkins, despite having holes in their records as all fighters do, took chances. Hopkins took on some big time challangers in his mw reign, moved up to lhw when he was 40 years old.

Jones fought in weight classes from mw to hw, winning titles, he got KO'd but kept on going...... should have retired years ago.

 

Ripped Fuel is just Jones's explanantion, there is no proof that that was what he was taking.
Andro wasnt illegal in 2000 either

 

You have been exposed as a stalker :-(. You have a facination with me beyond your own control. I dont need Headbanger to keep me thinking Im special, I have you stalking me from thread to thread to do that.
Worrying that a man (I pressume) that advertises himself as single also sends an icon, blowing me a kiss atsch. Sort it out

 

Thats right. I read a link someone posted on another thread, saying something along the line of Jones having levels 6 times higher than they should have been (I dont know the exact details) and that ripped fuel couldnt raise a bodies levels that high.

I do remember when S Johnson defended against B Schwer and after the fight was found to have a banned substance in his system. He claimed when in the UK he bought a product for a cold in the UK (I forget the name), which has that substance in question in it.
The only thing was, he was found to be lying as that product isnt sold in the UK and he couldnt have bought it in the UK. Still the WBC (that time) didnt take the case further of a fighter fighting with a banned substance in his system

 

Why? Surely he could of cut a deal with the sanctioining bodies?

Froch is a easy fight for Calzaghe. Froch would of got Laceyed.

When the Calzaghe fight was being offered to him, how did Hopkins know he was going to get a shot at Oscar?

Hopkins doesnt deserve anything after the crap he pulled in that fight

 

Thats link was for the Jacob Hall interview from BraggingRights

http://www.braggingrightscorner.com/sarajhall1.html

The only fighter they have punished that i know of is Toney. Jones was also the wbc lhw champ when he tested positive as well

 

Froch would have ****ed up Calzaghe thats why Calzaghe didnt want it.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFhan1S7vv0[/ame]

How can you say Calzaghe would have lacyeid Froch, when Froch is bigger than the two of them. Froch has stamina to last the distance with Calzaghe, and Calzaghe has a shaky chin during the time that video that I posted getting knock down by a person with the average age of 41.

Calzaghe ran away from the likes of Froch, Pascal, Hopkins II, Dawson, Dirrell, Ward, Abraham, Bute, Pavlik, Johnson, Tarver, and Chisora.

 

Cazlaghe didn't run away from anyone - he retired because he was done with boxing. Please stop these childish insults. He had achieved everthing he wanted to. If he had lost to Hopkins he would fought him again. Joe wanted to walk away on top.

If Hopkins and Glen Johnson were undefeated they would have retired a long time ago.

 

Calzaghe said he wanted Hopkins after the Mitchell fight for starters.

In the London press conference to announce the fight Hopkins is asked why the fight couldn't be made several years previously. He acknowledges the fight had tried to be made in the past, but all he can give is long-winded answer about now being the right time to fight. At no point does he exonerate himself from the reasons to why the fight fell through in the past. In fact he comes across quite desperate to justify why he turned down Joe.

He even mentions that the fight tried to be made previously in final Las Vegas press conference during the week of the fight.

If Hopkins was blameless he would have said so. If it was was someone elses fault, motor mouth Hopkins would have blamed them.

 

Hopkins said he wants to be the oldest champ so looksa like aint in the game still because of losses but coz he wants to make legacy.

Calzaghe didnt want a piece of Froch, the WBC Mandatory thats a fact

 

Calzaghe agreed to move up and fight Hopkins in December 2007 and the fight was April 2008.

Froch became the WBC SMW mandatory in May 2008.

Calzaghe had already moved up and vacated by the time Froch became the WBC No.1. Also after the Kessler fight he said he's got one more year in boxing which he stuck to.

As for Hopkins, we'll never know if he'd still be fighting if he was still undefeated. When you've lost once it doesn't matter how many more times you get beaten. Attempting to become the oldest ever world champion is worth the risk.

 

1st of all lets dispell the myth about the supposed greatness of hopkins resume, take away the smoke and the mirrors and this is what your left with from hopkins 6 best wins, with 4 of them being from when he made his opponent fight way above what their best weight was.





trinidad
prime weight = welterweight (147)
fought hopkins at middleweight (159) :deal
trinidads record at middleweight or above from hopkins onwards = 2 wins / 3 defeats

winky wright
prime weight - light middleweight (154)
fought hopkins at - 170 lbs :deal
in 57 fights, the hopkins fight was the only fight that wright had weighed over 160 lbs (a full 10lbs difference)

de la hoya
prime weight - welterweight (140lbs)
fought hopkins at - middleweight (160lbs) :deal
de la hoya only fought twice in his career at middleweight out of 45 fights -1 win / 1 loss - the win was a very debatable decision over eurobum felix sturm

pavlik
prime weight - middleweight (160 lbs)
fought hopkins at - 170 lbs :deal
in 34 fights pavlik had only fought 2 minnions at the beginning of his career at 169. all pavliks fights since hopkins have been at the 160 limit.

tarver
prime weight 175
great 2 weight jump from hopkins and his best win despite tarver being a b-level fighter and going 3 wins / 3 losses from hopkins onwards.

johnson
prime weight -super mid / light heavy (162 to 175)
fought hopkins at - middleweight (160)
johnsons record at 160 + from hopkins onwards - 19 wins / 14 defeats / 2 draws
the defeats have come against people of the level of ottke, woods, shieka, gonzales, harmon, branco, vanderpool, Kiwanuka, sosa





next you throw in the fact that calzaghe beat hopkins sandwiched inbetween hopkins supposedly best performances of tarver, wright, pavlik, pascal.

take into account that for the hopkins fight, calzaghe
- fought at light heavy for the 1st time
- fought in hopkins back yard
- had hopkins brother joe cortez referee the fight and do everything in his power to try and even up the fight

despite all this, joe calzaghe with extreme brittle hands defeated hopkins.



now we here you hopkins fans scream "that wasn't hopkins prime", well it was certainly the point of hopkins career where he was getting his best results. was hopkins prime when he was beating robert allan 3 times and beating hakkar and calling every welterweight on the planet to fight him?



so we then answer the question of why the 2 hopkins and calzaghe didn't fight each other whilst in their supposed primes in 2002

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now it wouldn't be fair for me not to give hopkins some credit because he is a very clever man, extremely astute tactically and defensively, he knows how to disrupt an opponents rhythm and he knows to neutralise an opponents strengths. he's also very good at calling out fighters he knows he can expose tactically and calling out fighters he will have big weight and strength advantages over.


the bottom line in all this for me though, is that bernard hopkins was not good enough to win 7 of his fights (5 defeats, 2 draws). there is a clear blueprint there of how to beat hopkins and this is probably the reason why hopkins didn't want to fight dawson but was desperate to fight pascal.

on the other hand, there is no blueprint to beat calzaghe, sure fighters can cause calzaghe problems but there is a versatility in him, a common trate in great fighters where he can adapt to the man he is fighting and find a way to win, the charachter to stare adversity in the face and walk through it by adapting his gameplan to that of his opponent.

for hopkins there will always be a blueprint of how to beat him but for calzaghe there never will be. on top of that there will always be that head to head victory over a version of hopkins that is far better than any hopkins fan on here will be prepared to admit, as well as the 7 fights hopkins wasn't good enough to win.

 

I understand what you are saying, but I hate it.

Not fighting, and even worse, fighting.............. specifically to protect a circumstantial and artificial barometer such as an "0" at the end of one's record does not increase a fighter's standing in my view. Quite the contrary.

 

Be my guest and make the thread breaking it down. I happen to agree with much of it.

Being generous, Hopkins prime was from 97-04. The man was 43 and nobody is prime at 43. He may have been able to make adjustments at a new weight, be more savvy and fight smarter, but these a re no substitute for being at the top of one's game.


I think you are spot on with the Hopkins/Dawson/Pascal thing. It shows exactly that Hopkins has been remarkably astute selecting his opponents as he has gotten older(he needs to stay away from certain types, and he knows it).........except for Calzaghe. That sort of backfired.

The blueprint thing is a double edged sword.......... Hopkins competition, despite the smaller guys was far riskier and far more accomplished than Joe's. Had Joe taken a few stiffer challenges, there might be a blueprint.

 

Its funny how people forget that Jones had said when he was LHW champ that he wanted to go back to SMW to face Calzaghe, yet Jones never did that though did he, and Hopkins clearly avoided Calzaghe