Calzaghe Fan Consensus

Fair enough man.:good

There was much bull**** surrounding both of their lives at that point...

I think they were physically prime, just not there in the head on those nights.

 

:good Yeah I know what you mean. Many times personal problems can get in the way.

 

I'm a Calzaghe fan myself but there are about 3 or 4 around here who really do annoy me. But I think it's the Calzaghe haters that pushed them to it lol.

 

So, the period where both fighters did not really face credible challengers happens to be their prime? Funny that.

There is bull**** around every fighters life, it's the fighters who find a way to win despite adversity that show us something. Ali did not do this until after his exile, that for me is when he showed himself.

Tyson never really did past the point of gaining his first title.

Joe, despite hand problems, despite marital problems and despite money problems was able to find a way every night no matter the odds to win. He never had "an off night" that cost him a victory. You combine that with the fact that he only ever lost 3 recorded amateur bouts and won something like 120 of them and you've got yourself a guy that doesnt' know how to lose.

 

PP.....hate to keep the cycle going, but.......

.... it was easier than it should have been. Not because he was so great, but because the challenges just weren't there.

Some his fault, some not. But, he was content to be the WBO champ for a long time in a relatively barren division.

He finally unified and began to put together some serious defenses, then changed course and started fighting way past it former greats.

To me that's it in a nutshell.

Now, he deserves credit for his accomplishments and you are right, he never had an off night and always took care of business in the ring. But it needs to be qualified. He deserves credit, but the appropriate amount.

 

The thing is, we can take into account that he didn't unify early as a problem in his career and debate it. But, the fact that he did unify later in his career when he was obviously past his physical peak shows us that he could have done this at any point in his career.

A lot of the problem also is that for all of the bluster around who Calzaghe fought, most of the people involved couldn't name anyone that wasn't somehow related to Jones Jr or Hopkins. They don't know how good Robin Reid, Richie Woodhall, David Starie, Byron Mitchell and co actually were, because they don't know of them.

So in discrediting Joe for not unifying, you forget that he did it and was the underdog in one of the fights and a very slight favorite in another ( Lacy and Kessler).

You also find people who will not credit him for his performance over Hopkins, yet, if anything, it's only really Hopkins at 175 that makes him an ATG in my view for how easily he beat Winky, Tarver and then Pavlik - before that, with the exception of Trinidad, none of his wins were HUGE.

Remembering that those three fights happened in between his Calzaghe fight, anyone discrediting Hopkins simply due to age can't be considered impartial. Was Hopkins better at 38 than 44? Probably. But we know Hopkins was great late in his career. Calzaghe however, how much better at 30 was he compared to 37? People tend to think of Calzaghe "in his prime" when he fought Hopkins, rather than a guy who was a single fight away from retirement with a history of hand problems and 46 fights under his belt

So... in hindsight.

Did Joe waste his best years as a WBO champion without unifying? Yes. Was it all his fault? No, those issues have been discussed.

BUT.

Did Joe prove that he could dominate and clean a division? Yes, several times over. Did Joe prove he could foot it with P4P elite boxers? Yes. Did Joe do enough by the end of his career to validate "Yes, he is that good that he's undefeatable by anyone except the very very best" - yes.

That's the only argument you'll see me make about his legacy.

 

I happen to agree with much of what you are saying.

The opponents you named(Mitchell, Woodhall, etc) are ok competition, but not the stuff on which legends' careers are built. Now, don't get me wrong, all fighters have those types on their ledger, but JC has to rely on them far too much, hence the arguments back and forth about their ability and achievements.

Hopkins, while still a world class fighter at 43, was still 43. It was a good win for JC, I'd probably rank it as a close 2nd best behind Kessler. The thing about fighting an old fighter is that it is a catch-22. If you win, well.... you were supposed to..... the dude's old. If you lose, you got schooled by an old guy. You really can't win.

I don't know if I would consider what he did cleaning out the division.

Joe may have been 1 fight away from retirement, but I think many of us were surprised by it when he did. He seemed like he was finally making his mark in the sport on the big stage, in the big fights. Going out with the JOnes fight was somewhat distasteful to me as it seemed to reaffirm that over-cautious and protect-the-"0" label.

 

2005 Ring Magazine Top Ten at SMW:

1. Joe Calzaghe
2. Mikkel Kessler
3. Jeff Lacy
4. Markus Beyer
5. Anthony Mundine
6. Danny Green
7. Manny Siaca
8. Otis Grant
9. Robin Reid
10. Librado Andrade

When you beat the clear number two and number three in your division, the number two has already beaten the numbers four, five, seven and nine and the number three has already beaten the number nine (who you yourself beat earlier in your career), that would seem to be a division that is pretty much cleaned out.

 

Being a Calzaghe fan its annoying when deluded fanboys invade threads and completely ruin any discusion which was being undertaken.