A Genuine Question For The Fans Of Joe Calzaghe

I doubt this :think

 

It is not in his nature to fight anyone who can actually beat him.

The fight was Kessler was bad enough, to fight Hopkins was just insane.

Hence why the Jokes *cough* Jones fight followed. God forbid he may fight a young, active, quality contender again.

 

I hear the same crap about Pacquiao like he fought a shot MAB and a shot Morales and he lost to JMM. I don't buy that crap either.

Its not Joe's fault that there aren't any good opponents out there right now that can make a megafight that people will actually want to see and enjoy watching.

Would you rather him pad his record to 50 wins by taking on easy opponents?

I believe the Veit rematch was a mandatory which he had to take in order to keep his streak of title defenses going.

With Hopkins performance against Pavlik, its obvious that he's not some washed up old man. RJJ looked better than he has since in any year since 2004. But its not like the majority of Calzaghe fans had a misconception about that fight. The people with the misconceptions were the ones who actually picked Roy to win.

And its not like any of these guys that Calzaghe supposedly ducked earlier in his career were knocking down his door demanding him to fight them back then. And its not Calzaghe's fault that the best guys in the division right now are as old or slightly older than he is.

I hope Calzaghe fights on and I hope Chad Dawson does something to make himself a viable PPV opponent for Calzaghe by beating either Hopkins, Kessler, RJJ, or even Glen Johnson (the real rematch that needs to happen) or unifying by beating Diaconu.

Why do you hate Calzaghe so much?

 

See bold.

 

You're very much missing the point. When Calzaghe signed to fight Jones I said that I wouldn't even talk about the fight, it's that insigniicant compared to what it should have been years ago should things have been different. I stayed away from the topic. I watched the fight and kind of enjoyed it, it was a fun fight for a few rounds. It's clear that the fight was no more than a gimick and the process of Joe winding down his career.

Calzaghe, to me, earned his stripes in hard, tough fights many years before the last few. Mario Veit was a mandatory challenger TWICE to his belt. It made him a lot of money the second time around, in a 46 fight career, I don't begrudge him cashing in half way through for a mandatory.

I have much more stuff on Calzaghe as a person that would add weight to the arguement that outside of the ring, he's a greedy, self interested **** but that would only take away from the fact that his boxing ability inside the ring is something quite extraordinary.

 

I hear you Dinamita.

Seriously, I blame it on their lack of morals and integrity.

 

The Jones fight was nothing but a money making exercise IMO. As a contest it was almost as predictable as Pacfan making another Calzaghe thread., JC put on a decent performance, but in reality it is not one of his best wins. I accepted that before the fight, and while I would rather he had fought a better opponent I do not begrudge the man for trying to maximise his earnings at the end of his career.

Calzaghe has been going towards retirement since Kessler, you could actually make a case for stating that JC thought that Hopkins was also another money fight rather than a resume defining one. He seems to have thought that Kessler sealed his reputation and eveything after was gravy time.

As ever it is not the last few fights that he should be criticised for, Lacy, Manfredo, Baiko, Kessler, Hopkins, Jones is a decent run even including Manfredo and Jones, but the wasted years between specifically 2002 and 2005, all those years without unifying aT SMW will be held against him in the future.

He has underacheived for his level of talent, never really pushed himself to find out how good he really was during his physical prime.

 

The irony is that he proved over and over again that he was genuinely world class. But America wasn't satisfied. They all called Joe Calzaghe little names and refused to believe he was anything significant. William Dettloff, writer or editor of the widely regarded "Bible of boxing" once stated that he needed to fight and beat Kessler in a unification clash before fighting a legend like Hopkins in the USA.... guess what Joe did?

The Americans were clamouring for him to get beat by one of their best.... they demanded it... they got more than they bargained for.

 

Do you really think Calzaghe would be given credit or have been held in higher regard today if he had beaten and unified against Sven Ottke?

 

spot on