Calzaghe's Return - a 4 fight plan?

i do think they would all beat slappy,eubank was way over the hill,and fighting the bulge,if i rember correctly eubank moved up to cruiseweight afterwards,

he is not in the same league as toney he might hav beat collins alright

 

They don't? Is that why Calzaghe is only second in this forum behind Floyd Mayweather Jr for most talked about fighter?

Funny that. People hate what they can never beat.

 

Pacquiao?

 

Calzaghe's been retired for 2 years and is still receiving the same amount of threads daily as Pacquaio.

 

Nah. Calzaghe has his busy days and periods, but Pacquiao is far more dicussed on a regular basis.

Granted, considering JC is retired 2 years, he gets an amazing amount of play. He is a polarizing figure.

 

Calzaghe is about the perfect fighter for stirring massive amounts of controversy on a board populated such as this one. He's undeniably talented. While some like to criticize him for slapping, I think most would recognize that his athleticism and unorthodox skill make him elite. Yet there are seriously debatable questions about his resume. This is exacerbated by the back and forth between the American and British elements on ESB. In a sense, his career can turn into a microcosm for the broader debate about the necessity of a legitimate European fighter proving his mettle in the U.S. (earlier than Calzaghe did, at least).

 

nah most people have him in top 80-100 ... I agree, top 20 is too much for asking but top 50 definitely is

 

Michael Jennings would own Calzaghe he is the best ever Cotto got lucky

 

I see it more so this way.

Calzaghe existed before the internet, before people knew about fighters who weren't getting much credit. We know he wanted to face B-Hop and RJJ in their primes but didn't have the dollars behind him to do it.

He goes on a tear, dominates everyone in his division that he can get in the ring, openly states he'll fight Ottke for 1 euro in Germany just to get the fight made and still can't get it made

Finishes his career by taking out the toughest threats in his division and P4P #2 and people still want to act like his career was meaningless.

Sure, he didn't have the fights we wish he had - but then you can say that about any fighter. Judge them on what they did in the ring, not what theoretical **** they didn't.

 

I agree with this. And its a good post.
However, when sizing up the fighter,in order to gauge his standing, one needs to look at his level of opposition as a barometer. Anybody who says his career was meaningless is most likely irrationally hating on the guy. But on the other hand, he has his proponents who severely overvalue his achievements and tend to galvanize others against JC. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

 

Agreed.

 

I don't know about you, but beating a fighter like B-Hop should stand as an achievement despite the age, especially when in his next fight, B-Hop absolutely dismantled a P4P fighter and undisputed middleweight champ.

Likewise, beating guys like Mitchell, Reid, Woodhall, Sheika, etc in most cases in the first fight after they got screwjobbed against Ottke indicates he was trying his best to get that fight made.

He was unable to fight Hopkins despite contract agreements in 2001 at the "prime" - Jones Jr stated there was no way he would face Calzaghe on a risk/reward scenario prior to their fight as Calzaghe simply wasn't a name.

All we can do is look at what happened when Calzaghe went from earning 150-200k paycheques for himself to the Lacy fight, where he got himself a worldwide name.

Including Lacy, if you remove Manfredo (still rated Ring challenger at the time) from his list, he's fought some of the toughest pricks available to him.

Lacy - undefeated, Kessler - undefeated, Bika, Hopkins.

That represents a pretty tough list of fighters to be going practically back to back against to finish your career when you're the age he was. It's all good to state Lacy was a hype job and Kessler was over-rated but fighters are fought on the basis of their current rating, not their rating after the fight.

You HAVE to reward certain things about his career very highly. One is the fact that over half of his 46 fights were with a title on the line. I don't care who you are or who you think you are, you don't fight "bums of the month" when it's for a world title, everyone he faced was at least a "good" boxer with quite a few bordering on "great" - he had defeated something like 12 former/current/future world champions in his career also

As far as I'm concerned, Calzaghe and Hopkins practically had the same career with the exception of the Roy Jones Jr fight (that Hopkins lost in).

Calzaghe was able to beat him at a time period where Hopkins is still more than capable of beating the **** out of most fighters and proved it by what he had done previously (Tarver, Wright) and what he did after (Pavlik)

Anyone who discredits +20 title defenses when in the history of boxing, it's hardly ever been accomplished deserves a kick to the head. Anyone who discredits one of the few fighters who held every single title in a particular weight class without ever losing also needs to be kicked in the head.

The flack Calzaghe cops is that people believe he should be beatable, due to his unorthodox slapping style and the fact that he was hardly known in 2004 before delivering a thrashing to HBO's hottest new property.

The facts of the matter indicate Calzaghe was an elite fighter with a resume to prove it, although not enough of a resume to get him any higher than 50-100 in ATG lists.

Talent wise? Between 160-175, I think he matches up favorably with just about anyone not named RJJ. Even then, I think RJJ's toughest fight at 168 prime for prime would be Calzaghe.

 

I think you are pretty much accurate in your take on most of this. But, I put a little less value in some of the names than you seem to. I find the meat of his resume to be somewhat lacking, and although I had never considered the "Chasing Ottke" aspect when selecting opponents, even if he had gotten Ottke into the ring, it wouldn't have done much for his resume anyway.

Hopkins, while a decent win, was not a legacy making win, and I think that's what JC needs to make his resume on par with a guy like Hopkins. And trust me, I am no Hopkins fan. I rooted for Joe in that fight, and had him winning. However, I do agree that Hopkins resume is far from perfect when looked at closely.

He deserves credit for beating the guys he beat. Full credit, he won those fights. But, you add them up and they don't add up to a resume fitting his talent. And while you can't realistically suppose who he should and should not have taken on,(lots of reasons why fights don't get made) in the end, he fought who he fought. That's my take. You and others disagree, which is cool.

 

Lacy was a bum without a significant victory on his resume, over his entire career. Hopkins should have won the decision. Roy was dead when they fought. People still talk about this guy because he acts like he has Ali's resume and he has 3 or 4 quality wins in his entire career. If he ever faced a puncher with a modicum of skill he would have gotten his head split in two. Elite fighter, Absolutely. ATG, no. Tested? Just enough to to start arguments. Floyd is constantly harassed for having a poor resume. Floyds 5-10th greatest victories would be a superior resume compared to Joe's top 5.

 

Hopkins should have won the decision yet 85% of people polled on fight news believe he got beaten? Riiiiiight.

Why has no other fighter achieved 46-0 with such a high percentage of title fights if it's that easy?

Like I said, you're ****ing stupid if you don't rate Calzaghe's resume as a great resume.

It's only really the lack of him being tested beyond Hopkins that people have this perception. When you beat every fighter you face comfortably, it's hard to give you too much credit, when the ATG's all had their bogey fighter they had tough trilogies against.

Floyd has the same issue.