Best british win of all time?

In recent times burns-martinez for me. Martinez was knocking guys out and was the real deal.

 

Lacy isn't one of Calzaghe's top 5 wins in all honesty.

It's pretty hard to come up with a definitive answer, a British fighter hasn't ever defeated a Leonard, a Hearns, a Mayweather or whoever at their peak. Plenty of valiant efforts, but no wins.

The majority fall into the ''brave but outgunned'' category.

There's plenty of lower tier wins, like Hatton vs Tszyu or Calzaghe vs Hopkins. Even Froch hasn't quite got himself in that category - none of Bute, Taylor etc are as good as Tszyu or Hopkins.

You'd probably have to run with Turpin vs Robinson, even though Ray by all accounts was on a beer and shagging tour.

Not sure who Lewis's best win is - when it comes to performances I'm pretty set on the Golota and Morrison fights. Neither performance against Holyfield was particularly inspiring in all honesty.

 

Out of interest, what are his five best wins Beeston?

 

Hopkins and Kessler are clearly the top 2.... then any of Eubank, Reid, Woodhall, Mitchell and perhaps Brewer.

Lacy might sneak in there, but given that he did literally nothing afterwards and was executed by a shotter version of Roy Jones than Calzaghe slapped half to death I'm loathe to put him in there.

For a fighter with his undoubted ability, Joe's record really is ****. For 9 years between Eubank and Lacy, other than those I've listed above he fought absolutely nobody.

 

It's Honeyghan over Curry for me. At the time Curry was the undisputed world welterweight champion and in some quarters he was being spoken about as potentially the man to move up and dethrone Hagler.

He was undoubtedly regarded as a top tier P4P fighter and the unbeaten Honeyghan was deemed to have next to no chance of pulling off the win.

In hindsight Curry's peak was very short lived, but at that time it was an absolutely fantastic victory for the Brit and he did it in America too.

 

To say that Calzaghe fought nobody between Eubank and Lacy, apart from those you mentioned, is harsh I think. Partly because he was fighting twice a year at most, so the names you mentioned fit in nicely to his record over the 9 years, and let's not forget, Calzaghe had to fight mandatories in this period.

I know that protecting the '0' is a modern fad, but it does raise a fighter's stock and put them in a position to earn a living from boxing, even fighting mediocre opposition. Calzaghe's career path was near perfect in my opinion. Sometimes people forget it's a job.

 

for me got to be turpin over robinson. more recently honeyghan over curry.masssive shock at the time that.

 

If you only fight twice a year, you ought to be cramming in all the top names.

The list of opponents he didn't fight in this period is better than the ones he did fight, which is unfortunate.

Like you say, it is a job... but he could have earned much more money much quicker, against guys he ought to have been able to beat.

Of course that would have meant fighting abroad or taking the short end of the stick now and then.

In those 9 or so years, was there anyone other than those three or so that I named that had more than half a chance of beating him? I don't think there was.... a ''world title fight'' should be 50-50 or close to that, not 99-1 kinda matches.

The only way Calzaghe was gonna lose any of those is if he popped a shoulder or something and quit on his stool. His biggest danger was himself, if he'd decided not to bother training properly, which was never going to happen with the old man in charge.

 

Post World War II:

Turpin/RobinsonI for me

Mention to Buchanan/Laguna Stracey/Napoles, Laing/Duran, Honeyghan/Curry, Benn/McClellan and Hatton/Tszyu.

With braver judges you may of got Louis/Farr and Sanchez/Cowdell added to the debate as well.


'Second tier' wins* would include:

Cooper/FolleyI
Lewis/Ruddock
Conteh/Ahamuda
Andries/Czyz
Calzaghe/Jones
Calzaghe/Hopkins
Calzaghe/Lacy
Minter/AntufermoI
Honeyghan/Rosi
Watt/Davis Jr
Watt/O'Grady
McGuigan/Pedroza
Naseem/Johnson
Naseem/Vazquez
McAuley/Matlala

*Only 'retired' British fighters listed.

 

Jack Berg beat Kid Chocolate and Tony Canzoneri

 

I'm sick of Brits trying to 'claim' Honeyghan.

 

Good Pick :good