The preface is needed because if american he will immediatly be accused of jingoism for saying anything negative about Cal.
On the contrary, some of the biggest Calzaghe haters (and Hatton haters, Khan haters, etc) are British. It's a strange sporting psyche we have as a nation for building up our sports stars, then tearing them down, by no means peculiar to boxing.
Very True:good I'll admit I am guilty of it myself sometimes. I praise Joe for what he has done in the last few years...just wish he could go out with more of a bang (ie: beating Jones and Pavlik).
On can can hardly blame Joe for fighting a fellow member of boxing's senior circuit instead of hazarding a battle with "The Ghost.". After all, he does want to retire undefeated.
Lewis gets a lot of credit for that win, specially by casuals and will always be remembered for beating Tyson far more than beating Holyfield by the majority(and the majority aren't hardcore fans). He doesn't get 100% credit but gets some good credit for it because it's IN HIS RECORD and won't be erased regardless of the facts surrounding the event. Hopkins won some good fights but still he ran out of gas against Winky late in the fight when he clearly could've KO'd him and ran out of gas against Calzaghe as well which gave Calzaghe a huge advantage late, the majority will ignore that in the long run based on Hopkins' recent wins before meeting Calzaghe without knowing a thing about how these fights went. Same case against Roy who will be competitive for a round or 3 then lose all the rest or even get stopped, if Roy gets knocked out then Calzaghe won't get that much credit but if it goes the distance he'll get a lot of credit for it, as much credit as Tarver got when he beat Roy the 3rd time they met. Don't forget that also the majority will remember Roy's recent win against Trinidad which will help attract more and more fans to see it, and the more they attract the more credit the winner gets.
Who ripped me apart exactly and how?, please direct me to the thread where I was ripped apart. All I remember is that some guy here said that Calzaghe had a list of excuses for not taking these fights and they were not his fault because Roy and Hopkins(Only those two mentioned, Tarver/Johnson/Toney and many other good fighters he could've fought IGNORED) claimed they had better options. My last response was, Calzaghe could've MADE his self that better option but he had a list of "rules" to accept these fights, money being one of them and for Roy or Hopkins to travel to him, even though he hasn't done anything worth mentioning at the time except for beating a shot to death Eubank, who is to be blamed for refusing to FORCE that match to happen?. If he wanted it as bad as they did then he would've MADE it happen, like Lacy did even though he didn't have to. Waiting for you to rip me apart please. :good
I think my next fight is going to be my last fight. I want to retire undefeated and thats something fighters dont do." He doesn't want to risk losing.
Question we he beat both Kessler and Lacy to unify the super middle weight division was hat running froma challnge ? When he went up to lt heavy to beat Hopkins was that running from a chllaenge ? You people kill me ! Take the blinders off !
I beleve the word "probably" was used by Joe in this interview when talking about this being his last fight. Probably, not definitely. I'll say it again, Joe will fight Pavlik before he retires permanently - providing Pavlik keeps on winning. Now, I'm not going to keep on repeating this, I'll just sit back and wait until April, when Joe's detractors will be eating some **** pie.
i agree, i think calzaghe couldnt live with himself knowing people would be saying he ducked pavlik. The fact is, calzaghe does have the warrior mentality, but who knows what enzo has advised him to do after the lockett fight? its an interesting situation.
Hopkins didn't really claim he had better options, he agreed a fight, then came back the next day and sunk it by doubling his money demands, preferring to fight a circus show with Oscar De La Hoya. Jones just says he never wanted to fight Calzaghe at that time. Whether Calzaghe 'could have made himself the better option' is debatable with regard to Jones (not Hopkins). But as no-one can really identify the better opposition that could have accomplished this, all we're really talking about is fighting the same level of opposition in the US for a lot less money. Not that logical. No-one reallly cared about Tarver in the time period we're talking about. The Johnson fight is the only one that really should have happened. Obviously there were injuries involved, but that was also the time when Calzaghe was going through his divorce which seemed to also be a factor. On the other hand, Johnson is not that good. Calzaghe's beaten many better fighters (including two who beat Johnson) so it's hardly a glaring hole in his resume. I doubt anyone ever ignored you when you claimed Calzaghe could have fought Toney, because it's one of the silliest arguments going, yet it gets repeated again and again (and destroyed again and again) on ESB. I'll do it for you again shall I? Try to follow along. James Toney last fought at SMW in November 1994. At that point Joe Calzaghe was in his 8th fight, having just stepped up to 8 rounders. When Calzaghe announced himself on the World stage by beating Eubank in October 1997, Toney was already at cruiserweight, having won the IBO title a few months earlier. He had failed to make the weight by nearly 5 pounds in his last LHW fight. When Calzaghe was fighting people like Mkrtchian, Salem and Veit in 2004, Toney was at heavyweight. So, exactly when and at what weight are you claiming Calzaghe and Toney could have fought? Done.