Ill give joe the benefit of the doubt, he was great in his era but there were no fighters in his weight class like Roy, Toney, Ward or Canelo to push him to his best. We cant really gauge how great he was at 168 without the competition needed during that era.
As I said in a previous thread Joe beats Canelo in a confortable UD. Most people only know his last fights getting dropped and slapping. However Joe had decent power great engine and always adapted. they will take a dump on the Hopkins victory even saying he lost however Hopkins simply did not do enough and went on to have notable victories despite stating he was an old man. As far as having no decent fights he did they were just towards the end of his career. He stepped up being passed prime himself and came out on top. No one can even attempt to compare Joe to Plant or Yildrim or anyone else Canelo has fought at the weight. I think the only person who might beat Joe is a prime Roy. I think he outworks Andre. As I stated previously if Canelo is such a monster why hasn't he cleared middleweight? or light middleweight? Cherry picking at higher weights doen't mean anything other than applying Leonard/Mayweather tactics.
if Plant and Billy Joe are tagging you and causing you some problems, then Calzaghe definitely is, and he punches harder than both, has an iron chin, great stamina, and is elusive. Not an easy fight but prime Cazlaghe too much for Canelo
Calzaghe wins, imo. Canelo usually enjoys a handspeed advantage over his opponents and here he would not. Calzaghe moves a lot and Canelo also doesn't particularly like that. Calzaghe's defence is high grade what with his freakish twitchy movement and slips. Gonna be hard to load up on the well-timed single shots that crumbled guys like Kovalev and Saunders. Worst of all, though, is Calzaghe's workrate. Yeah I know he doesn't hit very hard but he hits A LOT. Over the course of the fight I'd expect him to far outland Canelo with his slappy punches aka PoWErshOtS as they would be classed by compubox. zaggers UD.
Calzaghe doesn't slow down while Canelo excels at stopping guys in the later rounds when they're exhausted. Bad matchup for Canelo
The worst style matchup for Canelo IMO. + Insane workrate, always punching + Great footwork, and angles, always moving + Great beard and even better recovery + Workrate carries through the championship rounds The biggest issue for Canelo - at least his post-GGG style - is that he wouldn't be able to set his feet as JC would constantly be disrupting his rythym, and we would see Canelo get steadily more frustrated as the fight wore on. Can anyone really see Canelo KO's Calz? Robin Reid couldn't and he hit him with some massive right hands - even Froch had grudging praise for Zags there as he noted that even a shot Reid hit damn HARD! Carl Froch: Roy Jones: Although Jones was shot, and I place no real value in the win for Zags (unlike Hopkins), what Roy said after their fight is echoed by many other fighters that Zags fought - he was very heavy-handed (banger before having hand issues), and the pats/slaps more often than not came from deceptive angles that the opponent was not expecting - and after their fight Kessler said Obviously it's purely hypothetical, but IMO it would have been a similar outcome to his loss to Mayweather @152, where Canelo would have lost wide and looked out of sorts for much of the fight - just a really bad style match up for him IMO.
There are a lot of greats Canelo would beat. Pacquiao, Chavez, Matlala, Duchboijim, Luciferase, Lacy, Corrales, Jolson, Kurgan, even Bob LaMonta. But not Joseph J. James J. Calzaghe J. Calzaghe. No, sir.
Calzaghe would be one of the only fighters that Clens PEDs wouldn't work against because he has a natural god given stamina that is almost unparalleled unless you bring up Rocky Marciano
No I would say Ward is the worst stylistic matchup along with Roy Jones Junior and James Toney. McClellan would be very dangerous and Nunn would be very difficult.
