Hopkins would have beaten Calzaghe decisively in a rematch. Yes/No?

Is this what esb has sunk to? Highly unrealistic fantasy scenarios from losers who still can't accept that Sugar Joe beat Hopkins?

Calzaghe was careless and over confident vs Hopkins, resulting in the knockdown & generally poor start from Joe. In a rematch, Sugar Joe would know exactly what to expect and would adapt his approach accordingly - he'd be more focused & pick his shots much better, while still pushing the pace from the start. This is all obvious stuff.

Hopkins would again be headbutting, clinching, faking low blows, trying to keep the fight at a snail's pace, using nothing but disgraceful cowardly tactics really.

 

Joe would have walked into the lead right hand enough times to finally get completely separated from this senses and KO'd. It was all adding up on Joe. Uni-robotic Kessler landed a bunch of hard shots on Joey's grill and then BHOP dropped him with a punch he couldn't see coming. Even the corpse of RJJ dropped Joe like nobody was home. Calz' time was up. Zero head movement, a lack of elusiveness, and a lack of the highest quality athleticism meant he was about to get completely exposed. If he could have dominated an old, old BHOP he would have gone for it (few can blame an old man at career end for evading a young man in his prime but when a man ducks a man more than seven years older than himself who shouldn't be able to hurt him .. well it speaks for itself). He simply knew that he might leave the ring face down in front of his compatriots and that possibility was too much to contemplate so he took the easy road out of Dodge. He only fought two old men at 175 and like RJJ at heavyweight knew what his limitations could mean if he pushed his luck and stayed a second longer. BHOP could very well take him seriously for the first time and come into a second fight fit and that would mean complete and utter disaster. Before the fight, Joe thought BHOP had little left in the tank but discovered that even an unfit BHOP was the superior athlete and could land on Joe and that scared the hell out of him. He took the controversial split decision and looked toward RJJ who was faded enough to pose a smaller risk. Then he ran for the door and retirement.

 

Disagree.

The mechanics of Calzaghe are all wrong for Hopkins. I believe Hopkins stood one of the best chances of beating Calzaghe due to his ugly style, ability to turn it into a brawl and the fact that he's a very shrewd puncher but ultimately we saw who made the real adjustments during the fight and dominated down the stretch.

Calzaghe vs Hopkins was a pick em fight for the first 6 rounds - Calzaghe then dominated the last 6 because he adjusted, fought from a different distance and used different feints and punching strategies to get through to Hopkins.

Any time Hopkins attempted to come forward and throw after the fourth round, he was beaten to the punch.

 

Hopkins gasses 10 times out of 10 vs Calzaghe.

A rematch would have been another ugly struggle with nothing particularly 'decisive' about the result - another SD win to Calzaghe.

 

Funny how that gif is always the one shown, not the multiple times where Calzaghe landed straight punches and bounced Hopkins chin back, and any time Hopkins went to throw post Round 4, he got answered in counters and couldn't maintain.

But yes, Feints - look at this combination of sloppy amateurish punching from Calzaghe and you start to see why he's quite a tough fighter to beat.

A: He's at a distance that makes it hard for Hopkins to throw a punch at him.
B: He's putting no weight behind those silly little floaty hands he's throwing out infront of Hopkins
C: The one time he saw a gap in Hopkins defense, he loads up on the punch ( which Hopkins sees, tucks his chin in and moves his head forward into Calzaghe to defend against the punch)

Everyone points to this Gif as Calzaghe being a slappy amateurish fighter, while never pointing to the other Gifs in the fights where straight punches were thrown, but ultimately, look at what Calzaghe attempted to accomplish here

Keep Hopkins at a distance he was comfortable with, make Hopkins think twice about throwing and look for a gap with which to attempt to throw power towards.

Ugly but effective, no one ever said Calzaghe had a beautiful technical style, it's actually how ugly his style is and how easy he looks to be beaten that makes him so difficult, you can't train for Calzaghe, no other fighter does what he does.

 

IF Calzaghe's volume punching wasn't effective, Hopkins would've punched back more often like he did in his other dominant fights.

Even in interviews before the RJJ fight, Hops said he had more problems fighting Calzaghe because he combined speed with a variety of shots than against he did with Jones Jr because Roy even with all his speed never threw as many shots as Calz did.


Calzaghe did what he had to do and was effective because he made Hopkins back off and fight his fight.

Hopkins only made Calzaghe 17% percent less active, in comparison with just about everyone else he fought in his last couple of fights around the Calzaghe fight, where everybody else's workrate shrank down by 60 percent average.


Hopkins wasn't as effective against Calzaghe was against him. You don't win fights by looking clean in your hits.

I mean seriously, RJJ had very clean and good looking blows he hit Calzaghe with. But you can't outscore someone who's returning fire with many more blows than you can offer.

Yeah, make fun of Calzaghe's slaps. He can take it. You probably can't.

Form doesn't score you points. Nobody ever won a fight by staring at someone. It only makes you look good if you're not active enough.

 

Calzaghe for me his work rate is just too much for hopkins if nothing else calzaghes stamina and core engine was atg status imo.
It would be an ugly repeat of the first fight but calzaghe wouldn't fall for that back and back then punch with head going in so much this time around.

 

Joe Calzaghe= Overhype forget about it Hopkins is going down as an ATG!!!!

 

Hopkins lost the first fight, but he looked better in losing than Calzaghe did in winning. Hopkins was visibly the better fighter.

 

whatever I have seen no armed heavyweights throw more punches than pascal.

 

atsch

 

This poll just shows me that there are more UK guys here than US lol

 

Pascal is nothing special at all he's slow predictable bad stamina I respect the win because of hopkins age but he didn't beat anyone special.

 

Styles make fights. Hopkins did well against Pascal on the basis of styles, but Hopkins looked like utter **** against Calzaghe. It doesn't mean that Calzaghe is better than Hopkins; it just means that Hopkins probably wouldn't beat him in a rematch.