Calzaghe's thoughts on the year - "I was really in trouble against Jones"

Anytime, JO.

 

I won't argue. All I can say is that my eyes saw something other than what Joe told me.

 

Really?? Have you ever fought both ways and compared?

 

How the **** could Hopkins 'bash him up' if he wasn't throwing punces. Was there some kind of star wars **** going on where Hopkins was using the force but only clever people could see it?

So what your pretty much saying is 'if Hopkins fought a different fight and Calzaghe fought a different fight it might have been different' same as the rest of Calzaghes fights if they had been different. - I don't suppose you can argue with that.

 

Let's concentrate on Bernard, and how much energy he had in the 10th, 11th, and 12th rounds of the Calzaghe fight, and the 10th, 11th, and 12th rounds of the Pavlik fight. Let's use our ****ing eyes.

Now, let's use our ****ing brains. Does throwing a combination and taking a breath and resetting your feat take more energy, or does frenetically bouncing around, bending over, ducking, and squirming around like a ****ing pig being chased in a pen take more energy??

 

Have to take a break, I'll be back, fellas - keep those responses coming.

 

im not even a big calzaghe fan your stupid **** , hopkins was done by round ten and your lying to yourself if you didn't see him faking the low blows. It obvious calzaghe won the fight even though it was close hopkins just didn't have the stamina to do anything against calzaghe's work rate. Its also funny that is fcalzaghe is such a **** punchers why couldn't hopkins do **** all to him and walk him down. Your a stupid **** and you need to start watching boxing instead of hearing some talk by people more stupid than even yourslef and coming up with silly little inaccurate rants.

 

I'm not going to carry this on because you simply cannot compare fighting Calzaghe to fighting Pavlik in the first place. The question you need to ask yourself is why did Bernard feel he could fight so offensively against Mr Pavlik but not aginst Mr Calzaghe. If he'd fought the same way against Joe that he did against Kelly then he would've been ****ed after 5 rounds instead of 10. In the Calzaghe fight Hopkins threw one punch and held because he knew that as soon as he opened himself up he was getting half a dozen punches in return. Maybe not all of them would've landed but he would not have been able to predict where they were coming from. As opposed to the fight against Pavlik who's never heard of the word 'angles'. And I'm saying this after being a big Bernard fan all his career and being massively impressed with his caning of Pavlik.

 

I thought the article was a pretty good read...that's the kind of stuff Calzaghe should be saying instead of firing off all the time talking bull**** to keep his name in the papers.

 

Which means what to you? Or, doesn't age matter at all? B-Hop was 37 in 2002. Would Ali in his late 30s defeat prime Ali (late 20s)? How about SRL, SRR, RJJ, Duran, Chavez, etc., etc.?

Joe was fighting Tucker Pudwill (and Jimenez/Brewer) in 2002. Unless Hop himself supported the version "documented a million times before on these boards", I don't buy it. One man's take is not necessarily an accurate description no matter his apparent proximity to one side of the discussion.

And, what are you suggesting it means when two fighters do not reach agreement on a purse? There was no contract. Obviously, no binding verbal agreement. Just the normal offer/counter offer that occurs in a negotiation. Why ignore the probability that Hop wanted the maximum purse upon reflection (of an acceptance of the first tentative offer), because of his belated recognition of the multitude of devoted Welsh nuthuggers that love to support him and what the monetization of that following could mean? Why take a dime less? How did he know that JC's reps would say "no, that's too much" or wouldn't, in the end, say "sure, okay, we'll give you what you want because 50,000 saps will pay for it over here and there is enough for both fighters to make a mint?" If speculation rules the day, then maybe his so-called doubled demand was enough to make JC think, "hmm, if he gets that much of the pie and I lose this fight, I'm impaired. I won't take it that way. I need to protect myself with a big purse just in case." And, again this was the 37 year old Hop not prime. So, what are you suggesting? That B-Hop was afraid of Joe? Do you really believe that is a possibility? Really?

Better question is do you believe that prime B-Hop loses to his 37 year version of 2002 and to Joe Calzaghe prime for prime? If you answer affirmatively to either then little more can be said. Really.

B-Hop's prime would have been the the mid to late 90s. If he had added the weight and moved to LHW then, then that version would have had the youth plus the muscle to defeat the 37-43 year old version regardless of how "skilled" he remains or how tremendous his conditioning is for a man of his years.

Chk out any sport and consider whether you can convince yourself that an old Favre is better than a prime one, an old Greg Maddux is better in his late 30s or 40s than a younger version, a 40 year old Randy Couture is really better than a younger one, or a 35+ year old Michael Jordan is better than a more youthful one. Hop is terrific in his old age. But, that shouldn't convince anyone that the old, more experienced version is somehow superior or equivalent to the same athlete in their prime.

 

hell if i was hit that hard by a forarm i d not think i would get up.

recovery skills A+++ i personally do not think there is better

chin B-A he can be put on his ass but look at the uppercuts kessler threw and the one against RJJ at the end of the 6th starts off as a B but by the end of round 2 it is an A class chin

 

Vitali Klit (Lennox Lewis fight).

 

As for the fight tactics, Hopkins fought the way he did because he measured the risk-reward in his mind and decided the smartest way to fight Joe was to play the pure spoiler role- try to land one punch, clinch, repeat. If Hopkins himself thought opening up more offensively would've given him a better chance at winning, he'd have done it in a heartbeat.

He didn't. And a big part of it is because Bernard has trouble winning when he doesn't have the speed advantage- look at all of his losses, and you'll see one common theme: they're all faster than he was. That makes all the difference between fighting Joe Calzaghe and Jermain Taylor as opposed to Tarver and Pavlik, two accomplished fighters Hopkins clowned in the same time period.

 

Anytime you go down you are hurt, he is using hyporbole, he got up and dominated but it was a wake up punch and the heavy wrapped wrist is worse than a rolled up newspaper