Better Resume: Joe Calzaghe or Anthony Joshua

Joe Calzaghe by a wide margin so far.

 

Andy Ruiz is grossly overweight, but a decent HW.

He’s on the same level as most of Joe’s best wins.

He’s also better than the majority of Joe’s opposition.

Yes, Joe conquered all of his foes. However, only about 10 of them were world level opponents.

 

I don’t see how it’s easily Joe, if we’re only comparing resumes.

 

The Ruiz fight does dent his legacy somewhat. But Ruiz is a decent HW, and he came back from it and beat him comfortably in the rematch.

Wladimir Klitschko lost to 3 non great HW’s in his 20’s.

Lennox Lewis lost to Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman.

Tyson Fury was extremely lucky not to have lost against John McDermot on his way up.


Of course Usyk is proven at HW.

Anthony Joshua is certainly proven at HW, and Usyk comfortably beat him twice.

No, he didn’t go life and death with Chisora.

The low blow was definitely disappointing, as for me, it was definitely a legit shot. But I don’t think that the ref saved him. I don’t think that he’d have been counted out.


The point of the thread, was to put their resumes head to head. And if you do that, there’s not that much between them at all.

 

Let’s not pretend that these fights are just very simple to make.

The Wilder fight has been problematic to make for a while now.

A Fury fight also hasn’t been viable for lots of reasons.

Why would he have fought Joyce before Zhang?

Joyce had only had about 15 fights then, and he took the Franklin fight after back to back losses against Usyk.

Zhang then had a contract to rematch Joyce, before then taking some time out due to injury.

Eddie then had an easy opportunity to make him huge money against Ngannou, where he went out and made a statement, to keep the Fury fight alive.

There’s no evidence that he’s been ducking anybody.

 

How though?

This is resume vs resume.

Joe doesn’t have a great resume.

 

Calzaghe.

 

I'm a AJ defender and think he get's a lot of unfair hate on here but as things currently stand, Calzaghe has quite clearly the better resume IMO. He won hos first world title and against a slightly past his best but still very good Eubank whereas Joshua won his from Charles Martin who is medicore at the abslout best. Given what he went on to achieve post Calzaghe, i think Hopkins is a better win than Wlad IMO. I'd say Ruiz is about Mario Velt level and Joe destroyed him twice wheras AJ lost to Ruiz in embarassing fashion the first time though full credit to him for avenging the loss easily. Usyk is a once in a generation talent so no shame in losing to him but bear in mind, a different referee could have easily ruled the Dubois low blow a legit punch and KD and i'm not saying Usyk wouldn't have got up and won had it been ruled legit, but he was clearly in quite a bit of distress.

Now, if Joshua goes on to beat the winner of Fury/Usyk things could change but ATM, Calzaghe quite clearly has the better resume IMO.

 

Joe at least didn't spit his mouthpiece out and quit in any fight.

 

I’m really struggling to see how he has a far better resume.

No, you can’t possibly compare a guy like Charles Martin to Chris Eubank. Of course not. Martin was terrible and I think that he quit against Anthony. I don’t rate Martin at all. But resume for resume, I don’t think that there’s that much in it.

Joe has a poor overall resume from a 15 year career.

To my knowledge, he only fought around 10 world level fighters out of the 45 that he fought. All the others were domestic and Euro level.

You could say that Hopkins was a better win that Wlad. But Joe barely beat him at 43.

Andy Ruiz is not Mario Veit level at all. Apart from 2 fights at the end of his career, Mario Veit was a career Euro level fighter.

Andy Ruiz is probably a B level HW. He’s not a great fighter, but he’s genuine world class, who’d be able to mix it with anybody in the top 10.

Yes, Usyk is a generational talent. And certainly on a level that Joe never came across in his career.

Yes, the Dubois shot was disappointing, and he showed a weakness there.

 

Joshua was at one point in serious trouble aagainst 41 year old Wlad who IMO held back when he had AJ down and hurt. Velt was Interim WBO champion with wins over Brahemer and Brewer so he was clearly no mug, outside of the first Joshua fight, what's Ruiz done that's so much better.

 

Wlad was still a great HW, and Anthony was young.

Yes, Wlad went with the wrong tactics. And Vitali has admitted giving Wlad the wrong advice.

Regarding Ruiz, he’s a complete disappointment. Because he’s very lazy, and has recently been pricing himself out of fights. He doesn’t seem motivated at all. But he’s clearly a good fighter.

He was unlucky against Parker, he had a great win over Anthony, but he then spent the cheque and turned up in horrible shape in the rematch. But from watching him over the past 5 years, he had clear ability, but obvious issues with motivation and being professional. In terms of talent/ability, I’d say he was a B level HW who could mix it with anybody. But if he doesn’t get back into the mix soon, we probably won’t see him again. And that would be a shame.

Regarding Veit, again he was mostly a career Euro level fighter.

The biggest wins of his career were against Brewer and Brahemer, at the end of their careers.

Brewer lost to almost every top level fighter that he ever fought, and retired after losing to Veit.

Brahemer lost to Veit, before stopping him in a rematch before retiring.

So, yes. Ruiz hasn’t done much at all. But to me, he’s a genuine top 10 world level HW, whereas again, 95% of Veit’s career was spent at European level.

Veit was never in the SMW mix in Joe’s era, even though the division was weak for the majority of his reign.

 

How's anyone seriously still arguing Joshua? Come on.. HWs these days are terrible .. Wlad & Fury spent half of their fights hugging people , losing to African wrestlers & uppercuting themselves.. donkey Wilder couldn't box his way out of a paper... & the rest (barring Usyk) are either morbidly obese, 50 years old or so doped up on roids they can't see straight.. this HW era is comedy gold.. imagine Calzaghe getting outboxed by Michael Bisping or getting flattened by Dustin Nichols LOL.. let alone having a nervous breakdown in real time whilst the winner is announced

 

Joe was dropped by an unknown Egyptian, and spent a decade fighting mostly non world level opponents.

 

AJ will be 42 in 8 years.