Why Hopkins will beat Calzaghe...

Here it is...logical...no nuthugging...

1) Hopkins is experienced and successful fighting against southpaws. He has a terrific lead right that will constantly keep Calzaghe guessing and off guard.

2) Calzaghe does not possess world class defense. His defense is his offense. BHOP will disturb his offense with the straight right, thus leaving him open to Hopkins calculated and accurate punches.

3) Calzaghe many times throws wide punches when he gets aggressive. When he throws wide, Hopkins will strike right down the middle and land all day.

4) Calzaghe needs to keep distance to win. He many times backs off to rattle off combos. Bernard has great in-fighting ability and bully tactics, enabling him to prevent Calzaghe's attack.

5) Calzaghe has never been roughed up by the likes of Hopkins. Hopkins upsets you mentally, and wears on you physically. Rarely do you see a fighter fighting Hopkins anywhere near "fresh" by the end of the fight. Calzaghe has not been pushed to those limits.

6) Calzaghe loves fighting where he is popular. He likes everyone loving him (who doesn't?). Calzaghe now knows he is entering someone else's domain. Even if there are Calzaghe fans, he's on American soil. How will he handle the pressure and nervousness about a decision in his first fight in the USA? He will probably try "too hard" and leave himself open.


7) Calzaghe's balance when bouncing in and out of action isn't the best. You can see in many of his fights that he gets "tripped up" or has issues remaining on balance. Hopkins knows everything about leverage, punches, and every dirty trick in the book needed to "force" a knockdown.

8 )Hopkins has world-class defense. Calzaghe cannot simply rely on his method of throwing 20 punches in a row when he will be hitting shoulders, forearms, and air. That will tire him out. He's not used to missing the target, which will also wear on him mentally.

9) Hopkins is used to talking trash, being in crazy press conferences, causing commotion, and so on. The bright lights, big stage, and pressure influence Calzaghe.

10) Calzaghe has not fought nearly as high a level of competition. Forget weight classes, Hopkins has fought many more styles, and complex fighters. Calzaghe has fought many one dimensional or "standard" fighters.

11) Calzaghe has never taken a light heavyweight punch. Hopkins has.

12) Calzaghe overpowers his opponents. He will not overpower Hopkins.

13) Calzaghe has never been in a battle of mental skill in the ring. Hopkins is the master of it.

In the end, I've said it all before. Unless Hopkins ages overnight (an awkward statement considering he's 43 and well past his prime, but whatever haha), he will school Calzaghe.

Calzaghe has never been in the ring with such a master of defense, in-fighting, dirty fighting, southpaw neutralization, etc...

Advantage Hopkins.

 

Any thoughts???

 

Thanks.:happy

 

I'd like a discussion as to those points...haha...if anyone is interested...

 

But cmon, they are nowhere near Hopkins in terms of skill level or ability to frustrate opponents. There is DIRTY (Tyson biting Holyfield), and DIRTY EFFECTIVE (Hopkins frustrating Winky)...

I think Hopkins is in a different league than Bika or Salem in terms of DIRTY EFFECTIVE.

He certainly is in a different league in terms of skill.

 

I think Calzaghe's workrate goes against him. It's like Jirov-Toney. Jirov threw his 100 punches around, and Toney just ducked, deflected, and landed big leather 1,2, or 3 punches at a time...