JOe won clearly. The one judge that did not have him win clearly was out of his mind. Hopkins did not have and has never had the stamina of Calzaghe. It showed in the fight. The fight was a terrible performance by Calzaghe. 'But difficult for him to do much with a man who wants to huck him all night.
It was an even fight. I don't know who to give it to. Ugly, non event of an affair. Hopkins gets the moral victory for the KD and not being hit clean all night. I find it hard to give him the decision though because he hardly fought.
Bernard landed about 25-30 really flush shots. Calzaghe landed about 4 or 5. Aside from that Calzaghe landed about 60 shots that were only just worth acknowledging. It depends what you like. Or probably, more accurately, who you were cheering for. I find it more intuitive to give the fight to Calzaghe. Scoring it for Hopkins takes a level of puratism that really does not seem natural. On the other hand, too often throwing punches that hit arms, shoulders, the tope of the head, etc is confused with actually landing punches. I think judges should be instructed more on how to score so we don't get this huge disparity.
Personally I think BHop discraced himself in that fight and deserved to be docked a point for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Without his extended break gained through cheating, and judging by the the way he was struggling immediately before it, I have my doubts that he would have lasted the fight. Fortunately the referee saw through his amateur dramatics the second time. It was truly an ugly fight but a very intriguing one none the less, and only one fighter was able to adjust and do, I feel, what was needed to win the bout.
I wanted Hopkins to win tried scoring the fight for Hopkins but couldnt find a way. It was a close fight though mainly because of the KD, I would like to see a rematch though.
I had a hard time scoring it the first time i watched it. Doing it again the second time around with the sound off n doing large sections in slow motions i scored it a closely for Hopkins. Even if his work rate was pis poor i can not score a round for somebody that spends the entire night hitting air n arms which was so evident when you slow the fight down. If 1 guy throws 50 punches n really just connects 5 clearly i'm going for the guy that hit 8 or 9 cleanly out of 20. Personally i don't like scoring ineffective aggression but i can understand the Calzaghe win, i do think a rematch is needed.
The people that think Hopkins won are deluded if they think that a fight is scored on clean effective punching alone. It is not. It is scored on clean punching, effective aggression, ring generalship and defense equally. Joe won just about every round bar the 1st which was an automatic 10-8 on effective aggression and ring generalship clearly so Hopkins had to win other rounds on defense and clean punching more clearly than joe won on the other criteria to get the nod in a round and the fact is on clean punching he was only a narrow victor when he did win rounds. Its telling that bar the 1st Hopkins only won a single round on all three cards, the 11th, just after he had a nice long break for cheating. In all the judges covered the range of legitimate scoring which was 6-6 even (and therefore a Hopkins win by a point) to 9-3 Joe. Any scoring outside that range is frankly bull****. Hopkins winning would have been as big a travesty as Joe winning 9-3 on all 3 cards. Most sensible observers that know how to score rather than just make up their own criteria had it 7-5 or 8-4 to Joe. As for a rematch... do the people that want that hate boxing or something? Their styles do not gel. It would be another painful to watch affair. Bernard had his chance to fight Joe and did nothing but spoil and cheat for 11 rounds. Tell me, if Bernard couldnt get the nod in America with 3 american judges and a freindly ref when Joe was new to the weight, what chances do you think he has of getting the nod with Joe comfortable at the weight in Wales with a british judge or two and 50,000 plus fans cheering everything he does?
I actually didnt have a problem scoring the Taylor fights both won by Taylor by 2 points. Hopkins just wasnt busy enough in those fights, he connects cleanly 3-4 times in a round ok but at the end of the round you have Hopkins 8 out of 20, Calzaghe 28 out of 50.
I won't say who won the boxing match because I don't really know what I'm talking about, but there's no ****ing question who won the fight, and that is Joe Calzaghe. He physically dominated and bullied BHop the whole fight. Now the question is, is that simply because Bernard decided to fight a ****ing boring fight, or was he timid for a reason? I sure as **** don't know, but fighting cowardly ain't winning me over. Joe went after him even after being dropped early. After all that **** talking before the fight, we saw who the real man was. I like Hopkins, he's a good man, but I wish he would stop running his ****ing mouth over this fight, it's embarrassing.
I have watched the fight many times and I strongly believe that Bernard Hopkins deserved that decision. I don't believe in scoring for ineffective aggression and mere workrate, I believe in scoring for clean punches landed and effective work done both offensive and defensive.
115-112 Calzaghe. Initially it was like 20% on these boards who thought Hopkins actually pulled it off (like 33% of the experts). Quite interestingly after all the bull**** talk of Calzaghe and the trashing of Jones (but only after a knockdown to look like a fool vs. an old man) and the stunning success of Hopkins and months of talking about robbery (and don't forget the months of US vs. UK war on the boards) the old man is suddenly getting like double % of votes... I can accept that Dawson and PacMan got the scores despite I had Johnson and JMM winning. But I still have no idea how could people score it for Hopkins on an objective basis. Calzaghe missed a lot is usually the argument, yea a lot, but at least he was throwing a lot, and a low percentage of many shots landed are still many shots. It was like 1 great and 2 good rounds of Hopkins, a few close, but mostly Calzaghe BOXING and not faking and fouling made the difference. Calzaghe slowly took away the Hopkins right (no more of those so-called great counters) and the pace made Hopkins exhausted and buying time instead of boxing. Of course: the successful punch, the right hand wasn't working anymore, yet there's little credit for Joe to adapting to the old man's style. In the end, Hopkins barely had any stamina left, and I have no idea which 6-7 rounds can objectively go to him, not after 3 times of viewing. IMO it was typical example of a close fight where one of the fighters was the deserving winner, simply because he was boxing instead of fouling. The Pavlik-way would've been the way of winning for Hopkins, but styles make fights, and as bad as Calzaghe looked vs. Hopkins, as old and exhaused Bernard looked vs. Joe. And guess what, Calzaghe's speed and stamina (also taking away key weapons, like the right) is what made Calzaghe successful. I'd also add, that the Calzaghe-Jones scoring was like the other end, no way Joe objectively won 11 rounds. I gave another one to Jones, but have no problem people giving another one to Roy, having something like 116-111 instead of 118-109. It's because there were some competitive rounds. After the 1st, Hopkins barely had a CLEAR round, scoring him another 5 or 6 is somehow not objective in my book. I'd also add, that among some experts like Iole and Rafael, those were the ones scoring the fights for Hopkins, who initially predicted a Calzaghe stoppage. I always had the feeling, that so ashamed of their prediction (or disappointed that the fight didn't go their way), they never saw the actual success of Calzaghe while were nodding at every Hopkins shot. I just feel this way, but these experts made a fool of themselves more than once. And after all of this, both of them picked Jones to beat Calzaghe, so tell me if they watched the Hopkins fight objectively.