Eubank vs Calzaghe

eubanks

 

Eubank was a MW then and more than quite arguably at his best.

I can't see Joe boiling down to MW and beating Eubank.

 

Done to death.

 

Slip, is there any evidence that Calzaghe could ever have been a force at 160?

It always seems a little unfair to me that comparisons get made at 168 where Eubank more than quite arguably wasn't at his best and was at 5ft 10/9 no means a large SMW. It's the same with Benn in a way.

In a way it's a bit like pitting a class Light Weight, who was never quite as cutting at a weight class above, against class JWW or WW.

Yes, I know that's the only weight they all fought at.

Anyway, yes, this whole thing is a bit long in the tooth, agreed.

 

I was at the fight in Shefield.Eubank fought a good fight despite the short notice and being at the back end of his career.I got the impression a younger Chris would have had enough to win a hard points battle at that time.If he would have beaten a prime Joe at say the stage he fought Lacy is a different matter.I would like to think he would have but its a very hard one to call.

 

What is sad about these kind of things, in my personal opinion, is that if a, let's be honest, pretty much done Eubank, had never have faced Joe, the results of these kind of questions would be very different.

It's actually to Eubank's detriment that he managed to put up a good fight at a stage where he was done, well almost certainly at the weight, there's no question about that.

Roy Jones gets a free pass for his performance against Calzaghe, yet the fight against Eubank is often used as a gauge to how they would have matched in their prime, often to the detriment of Eubank. That is very, very unfair in my humble opinion.

 

You make my point beautifully.

Eubank was shot at very least at the weight, as Steve Collins at the time said himself.

The guy was reduced to fighting exhibition fights in the middle east.

 

Good point,well said!I never looked at it like that before.
I think I speak for everyone in the arena that night when I say thanks to Chris Eubank.He turned up at very short notice,played the usual bad guy act,got stuck on his arse in the first then got up and gave Calzaghe all he could handle.Prime for prime it would have been a massive fight.It was a cracking fight that night thanks to a weight drained,battle worn Eubank.

 

Eubank did look shot to bits in his previous three fights, when Collins clearly won 11 out of 12 rounds (forget the judges) to send him into retirement, then the comebacks on Eurosport somewhere out in the sticks when he appeared visibly much much slower than the prime Chris Eubank.

He did box well against Thompson, largely down to the fact Thompson was a lot naturally bigger/clumsier/more cumbersome helping to give an illusion that Eubank was rolling back the years.

 

Let's not forget, Eubank was a light-middle (11st) in the first three years of his pro career. Calzaghe started as a huge super-middle/light-heavy and even manhandled cruiserweights on the way up.

The southpaw thing is overlooked. Eubank struggled desperately with a wide southpaw stance (Canty, Schommer) - he was okay with a narrow southpaw stance (Stretch, Rocchigiani, Storey) but a wide stanced southpaw like Calzaghe was at the time to load the lefts was always going to give Eubank reach/jab/foot placement problems ala Schommer (another fight he lost 20lbs in a few days for and lost by 6-7 rounds, incidently).