Calzaghe - Hopkins Legacy: Why Calzaghe's is superior IMO.

Hi guys, thanks for all the positive and balanced feedback. I’ve been very pleased with this thread outside of the usual morons, and particular credit to the likes of Cobra and Sues for some wonderful posts filled with very good points and analysis.

To your first point about SRR and his losses and whether say Sven Ottke would be superior based on the fact that he never (officially) lost….no. However, my point is that I feel whilst Hopkins has the edge on competition, he failed in the 3 biggest challenges he faced in his career IMO. This hurts him for me. His inability to beat Roy Jones Junior and Joe Calzaghe who are the two best fighters he faced as well as being unable to turn back the young heir apparent in Jermain Taylor, especially after he lost to him which gave him added motivation is one of the main scores against his legacy for me. I’ve tried to illustrate fully why I believe Taylor to be the 3rd greatest challenge btw as I realise that Tarver, Pavlik and Trinidad could be argued as being tougher for him….I just don’t think so for numerous reasons that I won’t go over again. Calzaghe on the other hand has beaten the toughest fighters he has ever faced, and his best wins trump Hopkins best wins IMO.

Calzaghe would not be undefeated had he fought Hopkins competition, he would have 1 sole loss to Roy Jones Junior IMO. Before people attack me for this, who would you really rate as a favourite other than RJJ against JC on that list? Trinidad, Pavlik, Taylor, Tarver, Wright, DLH…of those fighters I would regard only Tarver or Taylor as any sort of threat to JC, and even then I would favour him to win fairly comfortably.

Hopkins may well be undefeated, but that’s where the head to head record comes into play and when they fought, Calzaghe triumphed. In regards to the Taylor fights, they were close but I believe the majority felt Jermain won and in such instances, I’m inclined to go with the judges opinion anyway unless it’s a totally robbery, which it wasn’t.

In regards to Tarver…I can’t get away from the fact that he is a hugely inconsistent fighter. He has notable victories but again numerous losses as well and looked pretty **** against Jones in the 3rd fight and has looked **** ever since he faced Hopkins too! Again, it s a good win but you must look at in depth. Hopkins does deserve credit for going up a few divisions and beating the Champion though, that in itself is impressive I just don’t feel Tarver was ever really that good.

Johnson was also a MW originally (though Hopkins of course started his career at LHW)….the reason he doesn’t get lauded in the same way is because I assume that we all agree that he had long since acclimatised to his new weight class? Hopkins who we all know is an animal in the gym to maintain his shape and physique, had done the same after his careful calculated move to LHW. He started his career there and I’ve read quotes saying that he pretty much boiled down to the MW level, testament to his great discipline. However, I think it’s folly to suggest that wins over WW or ODLH mean that much considering just how poorly they handled going up. Wright looked soft and while he did decently, just didn’t seem to handle going so far up well at all and I doubt very much we will see him there again in the future. DLH just isn’t a MW full stop. He was AWFUL against Sturm and while he looked in better condition for Hopkins, I don’t think anyone can really argue strongly that DLH was a good MW or a very good win for Hopkins. It was simply a money bout that Hopkins waited around for.

People expected Hopkins to lose to Winky? I remember saying it in more hope than expectation, jesting about it and that was made clear. But the overwhelming majority seemed to believe Hopkins would win. With Pavlik, that’s true they did. However, I really feel this is only because Joe C helped make HIM look so bad in his previous fight. I was one of them that looked at the fight very superficially and felt that Pavlik would simply grind through it and outwork Hopkins, not so. Takes a lot more than that to beat the old man.

Hopkins Prime for me, is very hard to define. He seems to have adapted and has a new style that very effective and that’s testament to him. If anyones style is based more on physical gifts it is Joe Calzaghes and he’s did remarkably well to maintain his awespiring hand speed. Some of Hopkins most notable wins (Tarver, Pavlik) have came in the latter part of his career, with only the Trinidad win really coming in his physical prime. Something that has to be considered too.

1. Calzaghe is undefeated and head to head he beat Hopkins. That the fight didn’t happen in 2002 when both were physically in their prime is Hopkins fault, not Joes and it’s widely acknowledged. I’m sure you’ve already read the Jay Larkin quote, a netural observer that laid all the blame on Hopkins for that 1.

2. While Hopkins has came up short when confronting his greatest challenges, Joe has not and would not have 5 losses on his record had he fought the competition that Hopkins has.

Let me again state that this is merely my view, and that I respect all the people that have put forward a convincing case for Hopkins, underpinned by sound theory and logic.

Cheers!