Arise Sir Joe! Calzaghe vs Hopkins the Final Word.

Yup what I said there was a rallying call to the good posters here to unite against such idiots.

Just don't give them air time and they will go away.

 

Ideally he'd fight both, but I've a feeling he'll stick to his word and retire after 1 more fight.

 

I think we need to stop playing the discrediting game. I admit I've been guilty of it myself especially with regards to Hatton & there really is no point to it. I'm going to try & accept things the way they are in boxing & just enjoy each individual fight on it's own merit. Looking at the big picture often leads to resentment & a lot of the "hypejob", "nuthugger" posts on the main forum are based around heresay & conjecture.

 

Yep, I mean I like a good debate and I have been forced to stand back and renew my position. For instance, in the lounge guys like MDWC highly formidable posters on the subject of football have forced me to concede points and review my position and I them.

Thats the whole point of the forum in my mind and we learn more about the sport we love if we do take on board what other clearly knowledgeable posters are saying.

Guys like yourself and Jeff even woke me up to what I was becoming: less a fan of boxing and more of a Hopkins hater and JC sack swinger.

Its fine to point out weaknesses in a guys fighting style or resume or whatever but to continually ignore the good and only highlight the bad...thats the basis of a blind hater in my mind and they are the scourge of this forum...no matter what form they take.

 

I know your a big fan of Joe too mate but no. You have to know when to stop and to me its clear that Joe is in physical decline...two more fights might be enough for him to slow down enough to be beaten by a fighter he might have well beaten in his pomp.

There is always someone left to fight. Always. Marciano had Patterson, Lewis Klitschko. Are these guys really held to task over that? Not by objective fans they ain't.

One more fight for Joe then offski if I could have it my way.

 

Very true. I can't quite understand why that bothers me so much.

 

Couldn't have put it better myself. Its ridiculous.

 

As you can see I'm a bit of a non-poster,but enjoy reading other people's opinions on a sport that I love.

The question always comes up of "Prime vs Prime",in arguments about mythical match-ups.
What do you guys think was Joe's prime?

We all know that Joe has bad hands,and has suffered numerous injuries.
Would it be safe to say that a peak Joe was long before the Lacy fight? and people are basing their opinion of who wins on the wrong version of Joe.

 

I've watched Joe since Eubank, and it's a careful balance of getting the smart, experienced adaptable Joe whilst remaining at the peak of his physical powers which are clearly deteriorating. I would tend to agree it was well before the Lacy fight

 

In my mind its hard to answer this question. Its not about physical prime's or mental prime's like it is so many other fighters but more to do with Calzaghes habit of fighting to the level of his opposition and also the hand injuries etc.

To me somewhat like Hopkins, its very hard to pinpoint Calzaghes 'prime' OK it was certainly sometime after 1997. But JC has been so darn inconsistent in winning that its very hard to tell when exactly he was in his prime.

For every good performance he had in the 90s and early part of this decade there was a mediocre one. For instance, he went from looking **** against Starie to performing very well against highly regarded Sheika. Apparently this was due to his hand injuries bothering him so much he couldn't even spar for fights...

He stagnated as well from 2003 until 2006 as well and I must say I thought his career was in danger of going out with a whimper until his resurgence in 2006 where he looked great against Lacy in every concievable way. To me that was his peak performance...but does that equate to him being in his prime? Not really and we can't even say that mentally he is in his prime...he has always had a habit of fighting to the level of his opposition and doing stupid things...the machoness against Mitchell to his stupidity in brawling with Bika...

If you had to hold a gun to my head, I would say his prime was probably from 2000 to 2003, after the Starie debacle he put in some very good performances against quality opposition such as Sheika, Woodhall and Brewer...its just strange that two of his best performances (Lacy and Kessler) have came outwith that prime...its something I agree that can certainly be debated though.

 

When you think about it, Joe's had a rather a fustrating career until only recently.

He just missed out on the Benn-Eubank-Collins heydays which would of made him a household name,and his major contempory rival for most of his rein would not come out Germany and unify with him.

The Americans at the time considered SMW as the perserve of European middle-weights who couldn't make weight,or at best a stepping stone to LHW.
It took a bad performance against Bika (the irony being he was trying to impress) to have the next hyped superstar in Lacy and team believe that Joe was there for the taking and worth the risk in coming across the pond.
As we know the next hyped superstar turned into a 1-dimensional bum overnight.

Now Joe's at the end of his career,SMW has become a far more sexy division with a lot of fresh blood so perhaps that will become Joe's legacy.

For what's it worth I like to see Joe's last fight against Pavilik if only to shut up the haters,but I think the timing is wrong.Pavilik hasn't secured his position at MW yet, and neither has Dawson at LHW.
So probably it going to be Jones as his swansong,which is going to be as un-satifying as Lewis vs Tyson.

 

Nice post mate. Only thing is it was Ashira not Bika he looked so bad against in late 2005. Nonetheless I fully agree, he has had a frustrating career but still has a solid resume from even before the Lacy breakthrough which some idiots fail to acknowledge.

He missed the Benn, Eubank, Watson and Collins era and with it guys like RJJ and James Toney. The guys in my mind that he could have really got it on with were Ottke, Hopkins and DM. Contrary to what many say two of them avoided JC and in my mind what he had achieved certainly warranted a shot against either. If he had beaten Ottke or Hopkins the fact is that his profile would have been raised earlier and he would have gained more recogntion and thus bigger fights.

However, I do take him to task for DM. Why the heck not try to fight this guy when it was clear that Ottke wasn't game say around 2001 or 2002? If anything would have gotten Jones attention it would have been beating the linear heavyweight champ. The fact that this fight was never so much as mooted really disappoints me.

That being said, Joes career since 2006 has been awesome. He had some lost years for sure but even factoring that in, he has beaten some big names prior to the Lacy, Kessler and Hopkins fights. Joe has been a great champion and its time he got some recognition...a knighthood is very much deserved.

 

Thanks,I stand corrected atsch

 

wheres jeff thomas gone - or is he humiliated for picking hopkins over calzaghe lol

 

:? I predicted a Calzaghe UD what you on about?