Is Froch's resume now better than Calzaghe's?

If Froch put in the same performances against Dirrell and Groves as Calzaghe did against Hopkins and Reid I would put those in the "good" category but he needed unfair advantages to win both so I don't recognise them as good wins at all. I don't even class Dirrell as a win for Froch in fact. I just can't give the man credit for landing nothing, constantly fouling and then using the "he wouldn't fight me like a man" excuse. Nor can I give him too much credit for the Groves fight when the win was more down to what the ref done rather than Carl himself.

Now if you can point me in the direction of Calzaghe's blatent, undeserved gifts or an incident of the ref overly influencing the outcome of a fight, go ahead. I genuinely can't think of any.

Was this the case in either the Hopkins or Reid fights?

When judging a fighter I'm not a fan of I consider how much I would have to gloss over their resumes/performances if I were a fan. Froch's takes a lot of glossing over, Calzaghe's a lot less so.

 

The post comes from Joe's girlfriend, Baily, and this is not the first or hundredth time he has posted that Hopkins was in his prime when he fought Calzaghe.
Bailey has been on Meth for years now.

 

The wins over Hopkins and Reid are still disputed, and Calzaghe didn't look good in either. Whether, you (or I, because I agree with what you) agree, it still has to be taken into account when comparing resumes, and disputed wins. For the record, I thought Calzaghe won both his, and thought Dirrell beat Froch.

The Groves thing is a real shame. A pathetic stoppage. But we don't know how the fight would have ended.

My chief point is that, if you are comparing undisputed wins, Hopkins should not be included.

 

Fair enough, I see what you mean.

 

Great post.

I agree that the Veit situation was different, but again, he should get criticised for holding the WBO at 31, in a weak division, and been made to fight a guy he'd already easily beaten.

 

He stayed at 168 for too long.

He said in 2004, that he had nothing left to prove, and he knew that he needed to go to America and up to 175, for a new challenge. This was before Kessler and Lacy had really done anything. Yet he stayed and fought Mkrtchyan, Salem and Veit.

That's why he gets criticised.

He ducked challenging himself against better opponents.

 

Maybe Calzaghe's resume looks weaker then it actually is simply because he was so much better than anyone else in and around the 168 division

 

well his best prime opps were Kessler and reid. maybe since he was on equal footing with robin reid then he was an equal to reid in ability, rather than much better than him? After we have to go with the fight we saw.

mind you he did beat Kessler convincingly, albeit a one hand Kessler. I am not sure how he would fare against 2 handed Kessler (the one he was losing to in the first 6 rounds) but you gotta give Joe the nod based on that convincing win because we can only go on what we know happened,not conjecture.

 

Maybe but sometimes that's just the division you're suited to. Ward has cleaned out the division and hasn't moved up yet. Froch seems to have no desire to be a two weight champ. Some guys aren't suited to division hopping and I don't think Calzaghe was ever really a 175lb fighter. He didn't have the power at that stage. He tried to get Hopkins back in '02 apparently.
As for going to America, he tried to get Hopkins. Hopkins wasn't interested Who else could he fight, Jones? Would Jones be interested? Joe wasn't a big name. Joe would do nothing for Jones, why would he bother? Jones was fighting for the HW title in '03. What else could Calzaghe have really done?
Who could he have fought and when?

I think in hindsight Calzaghe did things the right way. It's not his fault there were no challenges in his division at the time. He stayed at SMW and the fights eventually came. If he'd gone up in weight sooner he wouldn't have been a big enough name to get big fights. He would have given up his main bargaining tool (SMW title and ranking) and would have had to try to work his way up the rankings in a division he wasn't suited to. His career probably would have turned out worse than it did.

 

Calzaghe would toy with Froch and everyone knows it.

 

this is probably true.

 

Froch by miles.

Calzaghe's best win was Kessler by a very long way. Lacy was a product of hype, Hopkins was a very close decision (like Dirrell was for Froch), and Roy Jones was basically a shell of his former self.

 

I agree somewhat.The fact that he beat Kessler who is Ward and Froch's best wins and Bika who gave Ward one of his hardest fights says something. How well known people are makes a difference also. Abraham and Taylor never did anything at SMW and turned out to be way past their prime but because they are well known people don't criticize them as **** opponents etc. If Calzaghe fought guys like Green and Rodriguez he would be ridiculed for it. People say Hopkins was ancient but was he worse than that weight drained version of Dawson? Pascal hadn't done much when Froch beat him and hasn't done anything particularly special since. Dirrell hadn't done much before he fought Froch and hasn't done anything since but Americans know who he is. Groves is gonna be called a good opponent for Froch but if Calzaghe had fought him people would say he was a can if Joe won or Calzaghe was exposed by some novice euro bum if he lost or struggled

All in all I don't think Calzaghe's resume or SMW era is/was all that much worse than Froch and Ward's, it's mainly about how well known the fighters are/how much spotlight is on the division and how good or bad you make the opposition look.

 

That's what some around here would like for you to believe. He was good, no doubt. Really good. But he didn't fight the best fighters at ANY of the 3 weight classes (mw, smw, lhw) until he fought Kessler in 2007. Regardless of reason or intent or fault. (Because really, your record says you fought who you fought, not who you wanted/didn't want to fight). He struggled with guys like Robin Reid and Kabary Salem, and demolished guys like Mario Veit(x2) and Merketchyan. Half, if not more, of his defenses of the wbo were against guys not in the top 10 of most respected rankings at the time.

 

yes I agree that whilst Kessler is the only elite defence of Joes, Reid was close to elite, just lacked the composure, and add to that Bika was a solid opponents for a defence. Lacy wasn't terrible, in that at least he could punch and would qualify as a valid defence because of his ibf heritage. Theres quite a few of his opponents that were not bad at one stage but were picked when weakest/finished - eg. Woodhall and Eubank - and would have been good title fights at one stage but were simply exhibitions by the time Wassen put them in front of Joe. And this is the difference, Carl Froch would never have stood for even one 45 minute fight like that, yet Joe was happy to continue the charade for a decade.

there are at least 5 valid defences Joe made, its a bit more than just Kessler. But yeah waiting 10 years to make a really good defence is an absolute stinker, it would be entirely unacceptable a few decades ago but these days is becoming the in thing for 'longevity' champs with unknown titles. This is another reason Froch eclipses Joe, if you count realtime defences as opposed to some of the exhibition defences Joe made, Froch has made as many as Joe now.

Froch could easily vacate his titles, pick up the IBO title and then defend another 15 times versus bums but hes never going to choose to do that.