Hell No. Calzaghe. Nothing now. He just doesn't have the opponents to make that kinda leap. It's kinda like Ray Robinson/Welterweight, Duran/Lightweight, Hearns/SWW, obviously not to that degree but still, his resume is still significantly ahead of Ward's It's entirely possible to be better h2h but to have a better resume? Hell no!
Calzaghe is clearly not better than Ward....Ward has already accomplished more in the last 3 years in terms of competition than what Slappy did his entire career....oh yeah, and prime RJJ at 168 would have beaten Ward and Slappy on the same night. Didn't stay long enough at 168 but he would've beaten any other supermiddleweight prime for prime IMO.
Your hatred towards Calzaghe is blinding you. Calzaghe went off into the sunset at the best time. And he had the much better victories in his career. Kessler (prime), BHop (When he was still relatively fresh), Roy, Bika, Manfredo, Eubank. That Kessler win is better than Ward's entire resume :deal. And I'm a huge Ward fan.
he needs to be alot more active.. but i dont think the division is deep enough for him to prove his worth... his allready beaten froch who at the time was considered one of if not the best
abilitywise ward is close, I'd say top three so like - 1. jones probably, its impossible to envisage anyone beating him here. 2. toney 3. ward -bearing in mind we only have just over 20 years of strictly smw to pick from. Didn't SRL win a smw title too? but if you mean acheivements at smw etc it becomes a different ballgame, still close though - 1. calzaghe 2. ottke 3. ward ward is on a much faster progression than joe and sven and will no doubt overtake them both probably within the next year or so. then again, you could go via strength of resume at strictly smw - 1. ward 2. froch 3. Kessler (perhaps that list needs a bit more work but you get my meaning).
Ward has pretty much cleaned out the division, he should have fought an unbeaten Bute after the super 6. Dawson was a good win for him but Bute would have been better for his legacy.
I think you are pretty much on point. Yet, I think in terms of accomplishments Ward may have already over taken Joe. Ward has already beaten most of the top guys at the weight already, something Joe never did until late in his career. He beat the Lineal LHW champ (that Joe did not want anything to do with) who clearly and comfortably beat the man who he narrowly beat (I think he actually lost). I always said Joe was the GOAT of the division, mainly because it was a newbie division and most great fighters did not spend a lot of time there. His ticket to fame is to be considered the best in the division and he may have already been passed within a decade of his retirement. That is why you have his fanatics trying to discredit everyone between 160-175:bart
I think due to the fact that Andre's career is quite young and Calazaghes career is finnished we just have to wait and see.
The only thing Calzaghe has on Ward is number of defences, but Calzgahe's WBO run means jack sh*t. It was a lowly regarded belt at the time (same as something the WBU is now) and he defended it against nobodies. Artur Grigorian did the same as Calzaghe down at lightweight with his WBO strap-on, but no gave a sh*t because as I said it means nothing. In terms of real achievements, Ward has already, at the very least, equaled Calzaghe after just 27 fight, he is also the superior boxer.
joe has definitely done the most quantitiatively, though its a dubious honour rooting yourself in a thin division for 10 years (and even then picking and facing the weakest fighters possible and for lots of premature welsh ref stoppages), so yep hmmm. This is underlined by the fact that he'd have achieved more OUTSIDE smw if he'd left smw proper - for instance leaving smw to get DEFEATED by roy jones at lhw would be worth at least 3/4ths of his smw defences wins. but he was too afraid to lose to realise that. I don't figure him in qualitatively - even in Britain alone theres been better SMWs (eubank, graham, benn, Watson). definitely no1 welsh SMW though, and I have no doubt he will keep that record. ward - lets see what happens. he may well yet screw up but I doubt it. eubank gets somewhat underrated here H2H. his laziness was to blame, content to soak up punishment waiting for an opening made him look bad, though he never got hurt when he was absorbing it.