Calzaghe fanboys! Convince me that Joe deserves to be ranked higher than RJJ or BHop!

Of course he should be ranked higher. Everyone knows Joe is shot right now and is still able to dominate ATG's in there prime like Hopkins and Jones.

 

I rank them this way. Prime for prime.

1.Roy Jones
2. Joe Calzaghe
3. Hopkins.

True that Jones was over the hill when fighting Calzaghe.

BUT HOPKINS WAS NOT OVER THE HILL OR PAST HIS PRIME WHEN HE FOUGHT CALZAGHE.

Hopkins gave Pavlik a lesson. He didnt grow any younger in that time between the two fights. According to Hopkins his performance against Pavlik was the best in his career. As he said him felf after the fight.."this was better than Oscar better than Trinidad."
And he was right.

CALZAGHE WAS MORE PAST HIS PRIME WHEN HE FOUGHT HOPKINS THAN HOPKINS WAS.

Yes the hopkins was a bad performance by Calzaghe. Yet he won fair and square.

So:

ROY WAS THE GREATEST. BUT CALZAGHE RANKS ABOVE HOPKINS PRIME FOR PRIME. NO DOUBT.

 

:good:good:goodIt's the Equivalent of a man ****ing two hott women. He owns those little asses!

 

bull****.....it's phsyically impossible for a 40+ year old man to be in his prime, just because he schooled Pavlik means nothing....that just shows how great he is and how overrated Pavlik was

do you think a prime Hopkins would of lost to Jermain Taylor twice?

 

I think everyone is on the same page with this question and this thread. I am a fan of all three and I've seen Jones and Calzaghe fight live each of them. I've viewed all three of there careers as thoroughly as possible (though Calzaghe i've seen less of for obvious reasons). So I'll rate them as:

1.Jones-most gifted boxer of all time (if not opposition)
2.Hopkins-one of, if not the, smartest boxer of all time
3.Calzaghe-horribly under, then OVER, rated. Fast hands, huge heart, best trait is ring intelligence.

Competition is subjective but based on skill Calzaghe comes last. Like Carlos Monzon, effecient but never that impressive. yes, that includes lacey and kessler. he did the job but never looked that great doing it.

 

Because he is a THREE weight ABA champion,TWO weight world champion,ELEVEN years a world champion, FORTY SIX and 0 and WHIPPED Hopkins and Jones IN THE USA!!!! It doesn`t get any better.

Joe Calzaghe CBE is clearly ahead of both men.

 

And he shagged your jailbird hero in the ring big time. Calzaghe = winner Hopkins = loser :hi:

 

He doesn't deserve to be ranked higher but he does deserve to ranked on the same level.

 

Where as the American logic is thus :- American fighter beats British fighter - conclusion - the American is superior. American fighter loses to a British fighter - conclusion - the American fighter is superior

Only a yank could claim sh*te like that with a straight face. Mind you only in the US would OJ have been walking about as a free man up until recently :verysad

 

Firstly as a massive Calzaghe fan I admit he doesn't rank as high as Jones in the ATG rankings. Jones biggest accomplishment of being a 4 weight world champion is reason enough to put him ahead of Joe without the need to debate that further.

In my opinion it's close between Hopkins and Calzgahe who ranks higher. Also, Calzaghe beat Hopkins when both were past their primes but still both clear top 10 pound for pound fighters as Hopkins proved against Pavlik. Hopkins reign at 160 impressive as it was was also littered with the same kind of average fighters that Calzaghe gets criticised for on here.

As for H2H in their primes that can be debated forever. The fact is that nobody will ever know for certain who would have come out on top.

All 3 will go down in history as 3 legends of the sport though thats for certain.

 

This is a very good post.

Personally, I cannot see how Hopkins and Calzaghe can be ranked in close proximity. For me, B-Hop was a clearly superior fighter in his prime in terms of skill and ability, has a far better resume, (those 2 things should be enough to justify why I don't rank them closely together), and has also achieved more (reigned and defended as the unified and undisputed world middleweight champion for a number of years, reigned as world pound-for-pound number 1 for a number of years, at aged 40+ jumped 2 weight divisions and dominated the linear lhw champion, one of the greatest middleweight champions in history compared to a guy who took 10 years to partially unify a weak division and is p4p#3). Calzaghe's win over Hopkins merely provided me with further evidence that Hopkins was a clear cut above Calzaghe when they were both in their primes, as he was by far the more skilled operator on the night and lost out solely due to the fact that, at 43, he could not match the workrate of his less skilled opponent.

However, Toffeejack's post is not that of a biased Calzaghe-lover as so many on here are. I disagree vehemently with his opinion on the Hopkins-Calzaghe affair, but I respect his argument. It's not often you get Calzaghe fans on here showing such rationality and reasoning.

 

nevermind

 

I totally disagree, Jones was only knocked down once in his prime and if he truly had problem taking shots Ruiz would have easily KO ed him.

 

Get to **** you arrogant *****. Look at the title of the thread. you are obviously not a calzaghe fan so this thread does not apply to you.

Why waste 15 mins of your life writing **** like that about a man you don't like.

Calzaghe is not above b-hop or Jones and i doubt he ever will be but he is up there with him. Knock his record as much as you want but you cannot take anything away from what he has acheived throughout his career.

Jones and hopkins were always to busy to fight him in their primes. He wasn't a name back then so the reward to risk ratio didn't stack up. Lets not forget that they called him out. Joe simply accepted a fight with two fighters whom he'd always wanted to fight against.

Kessler is and always will be a good win. As for Lacy, although flawed now (perhaps due to his rotator cuff detaching a couple of years ago), he was then IBF champ and considered by all #2 in the division. At the time it was the best fight to make.

After a long career with an outstanding title reign and after unifying a division... twice, Calzaghe deserves his paydays. Yes there are better fights out there but the man from the little town in Wales deserves his rewards.

 

You talk a lot of sense but trying to suggest Joe did not unify SMW is a bit silly. He won the WBO title, beat the IBF and IBO champ Lacy, beat the WBA and WBC champ Kessler and was awarded the ring belt. And of course he never lost. That is about as conclusive a unification as you can get these days. The fact that the IBF chose to try and force him into a defense, just a few months after defending the title against a legit challenger in Bika, that no TV station wanted to cover and he chose to vacate and chase unification instead does not detract from his status as the man at SMW in any meaningful sense whatsoever. Had the IBF put forward a viable challenger that the public wanted to see they could have had their belt on the real champ, instead they just showed everyone exactly what is wrong with boxing.

And I agree the Jones fight means little to nothing. Despite nearly a quarter of this board thinking Jones would win anyone who was not deluded knew it was a pension pot fight.