Calzaghe vs RJJ's resume

Joe doesn't beat that version of Toney, Hopkins, or Ruiz IMO. Though I must say I hate to put Ruiz in the same sentence as any of those guys and base that on the fact that I don't think Joe could have competed at HW. He certainly was a better fighter than Ruiz.

 

Lets say Andre Ward moves up to LHW, and avoids the man (BHop) (like RJJ supposedly avoided DM) and beats Cleverly (WBO), Cloud (IBF) and Shumenov (WBA).

Then Andre Ward moves up to HW, avoids the Klitschko brothers and beats Povetkin.

That would be an amazing feat, similar to RJJ moving carefully navigating through the weights.
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Andre Ward is a SMW, while RJJ began his career at LMW.

So lets look at a MW carefully navigating through the weights.

Daniel Geale vacates his WBA MW title moves up to SMW and avoids Ward and Bute, and beats up Steiglitz (WBO). Defends for a bit then moves up to LHW and avoids BHop (The Man) and beats up Cloud (IBF) Clev (WBO) and Shumenov (WBA) and then defends against some policemen and cab drivers.

Then Geale moves up to HW and beats Povetkin.

Australians will call him the GOAT

 

it seems like complete conjecture anyway., Calzaghe knew his limits and simply wouldnt move up to LH and HW to lose fights. It would never happen in a month of Sundays.


Its like arguing what would happen to Tyson slimming up and moving down to Cruiserweight.

 

Good post man!

I like your analogies, but I think the circumstances are completely different.

First off, in my opinion, any Middleweight or light heavyweight that moves up to fight a top ten ranked heavy, should get a huge amount of respect. If it was easy, more fighters would have done it.

If Andre Ward did that, i'd say that would be a great achievement. But as I say, I like you're analogies, but I think they're way out.

Roy didn't avoid DM, he just wasn't willing to go to Germany. Let's be honest, why should he have had to? DM was happy defending his belt in Germany, and he could never agree terms to come to the U.S. So the fight became impossible to make. So hypothetically, it would depend under what circumstances Ward didn't end up fighting Bernard.

If Andre Ward avoided the K Brothers and beat Potvetkin, that in my opinion would still be an achievement. But you've mentioned the K Brothers, because they are the dominant force in the division. When Roy went up, the Heavyweight force was Lennox. Now, although it didn't come off, Roy did persue a fight with Lennox.

So Roy didn't avoid Lewis, like you're saying Ward would avoid the K's. It was never Roy's intentions to just fight Ruiz. His main aim was Lewis and Tyson. So again the circumstances are different.

So it depends on whether Andre Ward tried to fight Hop, and tried to negotiate with one of the K's, but for some reason the fight couldn't get made. So I like your analogy of Ward, but I think you're been harsh on Roy. Your example of Andre, has him deliberately swerving Hop and the K's. But Roy didn't swerve DM and Lennox.

But like I say, if Andre Ward did deliberately swerve Hop and the K's, but do what you mentioned, in my opinion, he'd still get huge credit. Or he should get huge credit. People just look at Ruiz, from a heavyweight perspective. He wasn't a big puncher and he wasn't great. But they never put themselves in Roy's shoes, and try and see things from his perspective. Ruiz wasn't a big puncher, but he was to Roy, coming up from 175. Roy didn't know how the extra weight would affect him, and he'd never been hit by a guy who weighed as much as Ruiz.

People don't take these things into consideration. Joe would never have gone upto fight a heavy. He wouldn't have ever considered it. You can't even debate with someone what you think would have happened, because everyone knows, he'd have never gone up. Roy went up and scored a shutout and gets no credit whatsoever, because Ruiz wasn't a peak Larry Holmes.

Regarding Geale, again it depends on whether he deliberately swerved those guys, or they were other factors involved, in why the fights didn't happen. But even if he did avoid the guys like your analogy suggests, and he fought the guys you mention, and then ended up fighting Povetkin, again, I'd say that would be a fantastic achievement.

But realistically, what would be the chances of Geale doing something like that?

And what would be the chances of Ward doing something similar?

I'd say slim to none.

I don't think Ward would ever consider going up. We'll have to wait and see.

But Roy started out at 154, and he beat a Heavyweight in a shut out. I think that is an incredible achievement!

Roy easily beat Ruiz. Was it because Ruiz was absolutely garbage, or was it because Roy was just that great? Maybe a bit of both?

In my opinion, anyone that says that win was worthless, and it shouldn't even count, has absolutely no respect for the sport of Boxing. They've no respect for the fighters, and they've probably never been near a Boxing Gym in their whole life.

Good debate, I really enjoyed reading your post.

regards, Loudon.

 

Jones in his prime talentwise was one of the greats resumewise not so great although he could of held his own in ANY era though. Calzaghes resume up until the end of his career was **** poor good fighter though just didnt justify his ability by fighting enough top class fighters whether that was his or plank ******s fault probaly a bit of both anyhow calzaghe if he fought the fighters rjj did would probaly win some lose some it took the guy 10 years to stop fighting the tocker pudwells etc wasted his best years IMHO

 

Sorry to interrupt, but saying Roy wanted to fight Lewis, has less credibility than saying Calzaghe wanted Jones when both were prime. You shot that point down, I have to say (whilst it's unfair to expect a former MW to fight Lennox) I don't think Roy genuinely wanted to fight Lennox, General Zod went over this as well. I think Roy's HW stint was more of a publicity stunt than anything, the fights he wanted were against a shot to **** Holyfield and a shot to **** Tyson. If he was truly wanted to become HW Champion, he would have stayed in the division and fought the other contenders to win the belts Lewis vacated.

Once again, I'm not holding this against Roy and stated he ducked Lennox Lewis, but I don't think he truly wanted to face Lewis. He was more interested in fighting a couple of names like Holyfield and Tyson, who were completely shot at that point, and would have posed little threat, but would have been large paydays (remember James Toney destroying and stopping Holyfield around that time? How did Tyson look in his next fight against Danny Williams?).

[url]http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showpost.php?p=12531825&postcount=516[/url]

 

Knockout,

No problem with you coming in with your opinion. It's good that we all have differences of opinion, and without all the name calling too.

The difference between Joe and Roy is, Roy went upto Lennox's division and asked his advisor Murad Muhammad to try and get a Tyson and Lewis fight. Joe didn't ask Frank to try and get him a fight with Roy. He also wasn't fighting in Roy's weight class, or even in the U.S.

I respect your opinion, but I don't think it was a publicity stunt. Because Roy wanted to go up to fight Evander. As i've discussed numerous times, Roy had a verbal agreement to fight Evander just prior to his third fight with Ruiz. After Ruiz defeated Evander, Roy then backed out of negotiations, and turned his attention to Ruiz. I believe that if Evander had've beaten Ruiz in 2002, Roy and Evander would have fought each other. Roy was talking about fighting him since 1997, and Roy Snr kept blocking the move.

Even though they didn't get on, Roy respected his opinion. I don't know whether Roy Snr finally gave his blessing in 2003 or not, but in the 90's he stopped a potential fight with Buster Douglas also taking place. Murad made Roy $17 m for Ruiz, and I honestly believe he genuinely wanted Lewis. Those Links from Zod were very interesting. Lennox was up for the fight. He saw Roy's great performance against Ruiz, and he respected Roy, but he thought he was too small. He thought he'd make millions and have an easy nights work. He was more than up for it.

I believe if he'd have beaten Vitali a lot easier than he did, I think the fight definately would have taken place. But Vitali caused Lewis lots of problems. After the fight, I believe he knew it was time to let go. Why would he turn down millions to have a rematch with Vitali? I think he knew that there'd be a big chance of him losing. That's my honest opinion. What other explination could there be? Vitali was a late replacement. But in the build up to the fight with Vitali, I don't think he said to anyone, that this was going to be his last fight.

I don't think he had any intentions of retiring, before he fought Vitali. But he struggled that much in the fight, afterwards I think he thought that his time was up. Like I say, he could have had a rematch, and then he could have fought Roy. We're talking about millions and millions of pounds. Roy approached him late 2003, and Lennox said he'd made his mind up, that he was definately retiring. He publicly announced this early 2004.

At present Vitali is the best Heavyweight in the division in my opinion, despite Wlad holding the other belts. That's my opinion, but in 2003, he wasn't as big as what he his now. Why didn't Roy fight Byrd for his belts? That would have been the easiest fight for him to take. Roy wasn't interested. He'd seen his mega fights with Tyson and Lewis fall by the wayside, and Tarver was constantly calling him out at every opportunity. Roy was normally cool and calm, but Tarver really got under his skin and made him mad.

I agree Tyson was completely shot. He was just fighting off of his name, but that would have been a mega fight. But I honestly believe Lennox's performance against Vitali, stopped a fight with Roy from happening. I'm going toread those links again.

I think Zod's been harsh on Roy there. Why would Roy approach him, when he couldn't be sure of his response? The reason why Roy approached him, is because he knew earlier on that year, that Lennox was more than up for the fight. Lennox could have turned around to Roy and said "We can fight, but I have to fight Vitali again first."

So I don't agree with Zod at all. Tua, Holyfield Byrd etc didn't really interest Roy, after the Tyson and Lewis fight fell through.

So I respect your opinion, but if Roy was scared of fighting Vitali, why would he persue Lennox?

Also, why didn't he fight Byrd?

If he'd have fought Byrd, but avoided Vitali, I would agree that he'd ducked the bigger guys. But he had no intentions of fighting Byrd. So I don't believe he cherry picked his way through the heavies.

After the Ruiz fight, there was no point fighting Holyfield. Zod's links are great, but they imply that Tua came knocking, and Roy ran back down for Tarver. But I don't think that was the case.

Great debate, Loudon.

 

He'd barely have to break a sweat against them! It's good to see that Calzaghe is still getting under the skin of the less fair minded of the US boxing fans!

Oh and the novice version of Hopkin's, that Jones beat, was inferior to the one Cal dominated!

 

2 things wrong with this :

1. Hopkins was closer to his fighting prime when he fought Jones ..After he lost to Jones he didn't lose for another 10 yrs

2. Joe won but barley and far from dominating anyone ! And I picked Joe to win .

 

quite right, the OP is assuming that Jones was mediocre and thus Hopkins was.

Two very stupid assumptions for anyonein the world to make.

in fact, Hopkins was great then but beaten because Jones was simply so much better.

 

Exactly !:good If you look at how Bhops fought since Jones his style hasn't changed all that much and he's been out worked by boxers ..So really how green was he:think And he had a much better trainer in Bouie Fisher back then .

 

I reckon the only way they could have made such a remarkably stupid assumption is if they were a Calzaghe nuthugger. Such is planet Cal that Joe would KO prime Hopkins, prime Toney and prime Jones on the same night.

Not dissing Cal myself, I am not going to detract from the factthat he was a great MINOR title champion, but he'd never beat them three legit major world champs. Cal was a truely awful unified title holder running away as soon as he unified before someone real came along and took his undefeated record. I wonder if that realisation is what drove him to cocaine, that he pissed his career away for a whole decade instead of accepting a defeat or two.

 

You kidding apparently Joe had this great power before he hurt his hands so im sure you could throw in SRR as well as a guy Joe would have Koed in teh same night as well

 

THAT SRR v Calzaghe thread was a bit much, wasnt it? They can be as bad as Klithuggers sometimes.