Calzaghe would definitely have stopped Hopkins with a competent referee

I watched the fight at the time, live in a university bar. At the time I had calzaghe winning.

I have no intention of watching the fight again but i'm assuming that as a sober adult compared to a drunken student, i'd have a different opinion.

I do agree he's gonna get in the hof.

The thread should be closed tho, no way is joe ever stopping hopkins. Hopkins could have stood there without blocking and joe would not have the power to knock him out.

 

hopkins did barge joe after the punch was thrown. it was a smart move. i have nothing against it myself.

and yes, hatton was ripped off in the mayweather fight. had cortez of let hatton fight, he would of pushed floyd to his limits. that's not a legit win in my eyes.

 

hopkins must of thought joe had some power - why did he run all over the ring then. he didn't want to trade with joe.

even roy jones said that calzaghe's power is deceptive. he was hurt a few times in the fight.

 

the point is that your making it look like byrd is completely against joe which is crap. i was at the pavlik-lopez fight and a draw was within reason. close fight

 

no, it was eugenia williams that scored the first holy-lewis fight.

 

When did hopkins ever want to trade with anyone? Do you not realise the intellect of the guy? He wants to establish his legacy as a legend and get out with his faculties intact. Hence the honing of his defensive skills.

And jones got knocked out by tarver and johnson during this time frame. He wasn't exactly the greatest judge of punching power.

 

You mean:

He would have stopped him if there was an English ref that stopped fights after the first slap like all of Slappy's other "knockouts."

 

this thread is so stupid it's embarrassing. i was at the fight and had joe winning 116-113. i'm american but i thought it was a close fight, hope that's ok. it was one of the worst fights i've ever attended. bhop rebounded with some good wins and joe ran straight to a shot jones. bhop's career is much greater than joe's but joe won that night in a stinker.

the majority of brit fans are intelligent and understand the sport but a few choose to point to any excuse for their fighters. the ref, cortez, did a good job in both this fight and the may-hatton fight. sorry the refs from some of calzaghe's early fights couldn't be there to step in to stop a fight when joe lands any type of shot. i guess that's a fair ref for some.

 

I love to rewatch this fight. It`s fun to see Hopkins resort to using his head as a third arm in the fight. It`s fun to see him low-blow Joe. It`s even more fun to see Joe get disgusted by the ref by round four and just say to himself....O.K. you`re out of the fight ref. He then grabs Hopkins and just starts nailing him to the back of the head. The ***** ref wanted to take a pôint from Joe but realized he couldn`t dare be that biased. Hopkins became a reformed man from then on and just took a startling beating until he gassed completely out and started faking lowblows and begging the ref to save him from Joe`s onslaught. A truly cowardly performance by Hopkins which showed him being literally bentover and butt-raped by Joe. That was mean by Joe but that`s the mentality it takes to get a victory over a streetpunk like Hopkins. Joe showed everybody that night that behind that Gentlemens Quarterly, prettyboy exterior he is one mean mofo. The fight really wasn`t that close. I had it 7 to 5 Joe.

 

:huh are we talking about the same hopkins? before his fight with trinidad, he traded with most of his opponents. he liked to get in close and rough them up. since the "tito" fight, he's used the ring more and concentrated on his boxing.

jones did get knocked out by tarver and johnson - so what? he felt going into the calzaghe fight that he wouldn't be punching that hard due to his brittle hands - he surprised him. i'm not saying that joe's a big puncher, but he hits harder than you think.

hopkins still ran from joe. if he felt he could of traded with joe he would have, but he didn't. why? he stood his ground against pavlik... why not joe?

 

"The fight really wasn`t that close. I had it 7 to 5 Joe"

Sounds like you scored it close, though. And this despite the "startling beating" Calzaghe dished out.

 

ps. if you scored it 7-5 Joe, that's a draw with the KD.

I'm going to now use an icon for the first time ever: atsch

 

No, I`m including the knockdown in my score. It was an awesome fight between two very experienced boxers. Joe won 7 to 5 because he wouldn`t let Hopkins bully him.

 

If you're including the KD, then your score should sum to 13. I'm just saying.

 

Not to mention the Knock Down.