Something I have always liked about Joe Calzaghes resume is the fact that he won every fight fair and square without any controversy, obviously that is not the case with lots of boxers they may have controversial wins for or against that were close fights, that was never the case with Joe Calzaghe he won every fight and there can be no argument about it, Calzaghe out of 46 fights and 46 wins only had two split decisions and in both cases he won the fights by comfortable margins on the scorecards, Calzaghe beat Robin Reid away from home in England 116-111, 116-111 and 111-116 so Calzaghe was in no danger of not winning the fight in light of the officials scorecards, the same applies to Calzaghes other split decision a 116-111, 115-112 and 113-114 away win against Bernard Hopkins in America yet again Calzaghe was in no danger of losing the fight on the scorecards. Calzaghe never had any close unanimous decisions, obviously in some cases a close unanimous decision can be more controversial than a split decision with a boxer winning the fight by a single point on all three judges scorecards as opposed to a split decision where a boxer maybe up on two cards 116-111, 116-111 and down 113-114 on one scorecard. Also Calzaghe never needed to get lucky by getting a stoppage when he was losing a fight etc, Calzaghe never did really come close to losing a fight, the closest Calzaghe came to losing possibly was when he got knocked down in his career for the first time by Byron Mitchell, Calzaghe got straight back up and knocked down Mitchell in the same round, so not that close. It is amazing considering the level that Calzaghe fought at that he never ever came close to losing a fight, head to head Calzaghe was virtually impossible to beat, head to head he would be up there with the very best boxers ever, his resume could have been better etc as regards the high end of ATG lists but head to head Calzaghe was one of the best, he never came close to losing against the opposition that he did face which is fantastic for a 46 and 0 championship boxer. The other thing I liked about Calzaghes career was the lack of rematches, Calzaghe fought and beat 45 different opponents, his one rematch was a mandatory, if any of Calzaghes bouts had been genuinely close or controversial then I would want to see a rematch but none of them really were, a quick look at Marciano's resume shows he won 49 out of 49 yet he only beat 44 different opponents {one less than Calzaghe, apologies if I have misscounted}. For Calzaghe to finish his career 46 and 0 is excellent but its made even more remarkable when you realise that he never came close to losing a fight or even had a controversial call in his favour in a fight that he was losing in {basically he was never really losing in a fight, knockdowns he suffered which was very rare as he had a granite chin, three in his career perhaps, not many anyway and two of them were in his last two fights, one a flash knockdown and one a fluke forearm smash all were early in fights but he turned them around very quickly especially the Byron Mitchell fight, great entertainment that one, he was behind Hopkins for the first few rounds but that was about it}, also Calzaghe beat a lot of different opponents which is also to his credit as sometimes a boxer will always beat another boxer as he matches up well against him. Also Calzaghe fought a lot of opponents on the road, Eubank, Reid, Woodhall etc in England, he fought a German in Germany for a version of the World title and of course he fought Hopkins and Jones in the USA. In a nutshell Calzaghes resume is whiter than white, it could be stronger, not Calzaghe fault as he was often ducked, but what he achieved was very impressive, head to head Calzaghe would have been a nightmare for anyone no matter what era.
Calzage fought the best of his times. People forget Lacy was on a roll and was completely dominated by Calzage but most favored Lacy prior to their fight. Kessler was a tough obstacle and unbeaten also and Joe DOMINATED. In the Hopkins fight it was Joe moving up from his favored weight to fight in the light-heavy division, still I felt Joe won the fight clearly and this was completely evident when B-Hop was faking a foul several times late in the fight to get a rest from Calzages pace. What else would the reason be but to break Joe's momentum. At times Joe threw pitty-patty -punches because of his fragile hands but he had real power when he planted himself. Roy Jones he could have stopped but showed Roy mercy which I fell was the right thing to do. People can say B-Hop was old but Bernards best wins came after Calzage, Pavlik,Pascal,Jones Calzage won every fight and that is a very hard thing to do and against the type of opposition he faced its hard to have 46 fights without a mishap I think he won every fight he had without any doubt
Sorry bummy Way off base. He missed a lot of marquee bouts On a roll of what? I dont remember everyone favoring him. Lacy's nickname says it all because thats all he had. Kesller had to be the most overated fighter going into his fight with Calzahge, but on second thought maybe Lacy was.. What does that mean, that he showed mercy on an upright corpse? I agree with this, although I dont think too highly of those other fighters. Hopkins is by far his best win although his style was favorable to beat the old man, just as Taylo'rs was. The fights were comparable. I think Joe was a very good fighter, but his comp is very suspect for his skills. Its not really hard to compile a record like his given his competition. His biggest fight has a ? on it as some people feel Hopkins won.
While I think you are blinded to any counter points on Joe, because of your unabashed love of him, I do agree w/ this point. I think Joe clearly is lacking in the resume, department and while you cling to 46-0, 43-3 against stiffer competition would endear him to many more and likely raise his overall evaluation or at least give us a better indicator of how he compares in a realistic sense. However I do agree w/ the closing statement. I don't rank Calzaghe nearly as high as you do, but at 168 I think he could be competitive w/ just about anyone at that weight.
Calzaghe's resume is underrated on the Classic forum, it wasn't ambitious enough, the back end of it from 2006-2008 - excellent 2003-2006 period is bloody terrible and he was a laughing during that time, pulling out injured on Glen Johnson 2-3 times, the quality is terrible at this time 2002-2003 was decent, with 2 ex champs in Mitchell and Brewer. 2001 was another wasted year. 1999-2000 was pretty good with 2 ex WBC champs 1998 - another wasted year 1997 - a very good win over a faded great So all in all he had 5 wasted years, which is why he gets the **** taken out of him, but he has 6 pretty good years, where he's facing around 1 and sometimes 2 top opponents per year
Ex champs dont really mean much if they're shot to pieces. Brewer was in horrible condition going into his fight with Calzahge. I watched him get battered in training, he was shot to ****. Jones as we know was a corpse. Warren was great at picking opponents to fill the arena, but its hard to say Calzahge fought any fighter on his level at their best, so its impossible to rank him up there with them. For the record, I think his style would always give Hopkins some problems.
I'm not saying they were the best of the best, but objectively: Eubank - a past great, would go on to deserve a Cruser title, albeit he was drained against Calzaghe, still an impressive dominant performance Hopkins - still maybe the best LHW, obviously past prime, I had Hops winning Kessler - I don't think he's great but he was cleaning out the division at the time, bat prime Mundine when he was decent, destroyed Beyer, beat Froch while injured Jones Jr - pretty much shot, but still a decent top10 contender even if not that the same Mitchell - a close fight with Otke some had him winning the prior year, not shot but past his best yes Brewer - probably beat Ottke at least once 2 years before. He was ko'd by Echols but Echols was a banger, didn't do anything after, certainly past his best though Woodhall - past his best but not shot Lacy - he was ruined that night by Calzaghe, I thought that watching him taking a sustained beating, no he was never technically great but not as bad as people think now and yes allot of people picked him to beat Joe and he was on a red hot run of sorts at the time. Interestingly Hopkins didn't reply to Lacy's call for a 164lb catch weight fight at the time for whatever reason Reid - was pretty much prime (that 1 was close) As a resume I'd say its up there with Monzon, who's best wins are all past prime themself and who's prime opponents like Joe's are a tad basic
Calzaghe is unfairly treated, though I think the passing of time will be favorable to him. He fought the best and beat the best (how any unbiased observor can have him losing to Hopkins is beyond me)... Many of the same accusations made against him are never mentioned in regards to, say, the beatified Marciano.
Did I make a Monzon fairy die? 43yo Hopkins, 31yo Eubank, 28yo KEssler, 29yo Mitchell, 39yo Jones Jr, Kessler > 34yo smaller Griffith, 34yo LW Napoles, 32yo Benvenuti (with 3 losses in 18months), 29yo Valdez, 29yo Briscoe Well maybe not, but it's pretty close