Fighters you consider "controversial" greats

I don't think Camacho was great. I think he had potential to be great but he let it go. his career wins are not great wins. Duran and Leonard when he beat them are not great wins.

 

Don't get me wrong, he was an excellent boxer. I became a strong believer when he took Jeff Lacy to school in a very painful way.
But I'm not sure that makes him great.
His has hardly any solid meaningful world class wins. He faced some of the worst 'title' opposition imaginable defending his WBO title, and scored several laughable stoppages over 3rd-raters.

 

Johnson is a clown... "I was naturally quick".... duh... I'd say every runner that makes it to the 100m final is quick. Thanks for the news flash Ben

 

Interesting that Calzaghe has been brought up. I certainly don't put him in the 'great' bracket. He's an all-time very good for my money, but not an all-time great by any means.

I just can't forgive the nine years he took between first winning the WBO against Eubank in 1997 and finally unifying with another title when he took Lacy's IBF strap in 2006. During that nine year gap his three best wins were probably Robin Reid, Richie Woodhall and Byron Mitchell, for Christ's sake, with all of them bookended at either side by a load of defences against the likes of Pudwill, Salem, Sobot, Starrie, Veit, McIntyre, Ashira etc.

There's a lot more filler opponents on his ledger than there is notable ones, and let's be honest, the notable ones weren't any great shakes in the grand scheme of things.

To be fair, he did have a very nice, late-career flourish between 2006 and 2008. The Lacy performance was brilliant, the Bika win looks better with the years that have passed since, he took a scalp which any Super-Middleweight you care to mention would be highly proud of in taking Kessler's '0' and then got a win over Hopkins up at 175 (I'm not giving him any credit for feasting on the charred remains of Jones, which we'll get to in a little while).

The problem is, Lacy's opposition before facing Calzaghe had been serviceable at best, and he achieved nothing after facing Calzaghe. I appreciate that many at the time were touting Lacy as a future star, but on the evidence we have I think it's fair to say we might have been jumping the gun on that one. Bika and, in particular, Kessler, were very good wins, but again neither of those guys are from the elite bracket, generally losing to the very best guys they've fought.

I thought the Hopkins decision was fair, but seeing Calzaghe struggle so badly with a 43-year-old Hopkins, who could only fight about half of each round, left me in little doubt about who'd have won the fight had it happened a few years before. This was still a good version of B-Hop, but you're having a laugh if you think it was the same guy who'd outclassed Glen Johnson or Trinidad. Let's not forget that Jermain Taylor, himself no all-time great, had beaten Hopkins by a similar margin to Calzaghe twice in the previous three years. Granted, Calzaghe at 36 wasn't a spring chicken, but he still had seven years of youth on Hopkins, had less miles on the clock and had produced arguably his career-best performance just a few months earlier in beating Kessler.

There seems to be a lot of revisionism with Calzaghe's career. Nowadays it's common to see him talked of as a hard-luck story, someone who was avoided by the big guns, but that's nonsense. Calzaghe wasn't even on the radar of someone like Roy Jones, for example, when Roy was anywhere near his peak. Take a look at Calzaghe struggling his way through an absolute stinker against David Starie on the Tyson-Francis undercard back in 2000; commentator Ian Darke notes, and I quote, that the idea of Calzaghe being a potential opponent for someone like Jones at that time was a "ludicrous notion." Jones was the best fighter in the world, Calzaghe was just another belt holder, largely unknown outside the UK who was struggling to excite even against average opponents.

More to the point, Calzaghe wasn't exactly chasing the mega fights throughout these years. Super-Middle was a wasteland compared to Light-Heavyweight, yet Calzaghe didn't move up until Jones was shot, Tarver and Glen Johnson (who Calzaghe reneged on a deal to fight at least once) were pushing forty, Michalczewski had retired etc. This despite Calzaghe himself consistently stating that he found making 168 hard on his body. He just wasted year after year after year.

By his own admission ("I could give him a good fight, maybe the hardest he's had, but I know what my capabilities are and I'd want the crown jewels because of the risk involved") he was cool on the prospect of fighting Jones in 2003, and I'm pretty sure we've all seen the quotes from his 2006 / 2007 autobiography where he says he'd have no interest in ever fighting him now, as he's shot and it'd add nothing to his legacy...Then lo and behold, he's in the ring with Jones in late 2008. I don't necessarily blame Calzaghe for chasing a bit of extra dough for an easy night's work at the tail end of his career, but I just wish his die-hard fans would be a bit more honest, and accept the Jones fight for what it was.

I just can't have someone so painfully short of top-class wins in the great bracket. Sorry for rambling, fellas.

 

Solid post. Good info.

I'd also like to point out that even the Eubank win has become severely over-sold. I remember it well. Eubank was actually training for a fight at 175 against another opponent. Calzaghe was supposed to challenge Collins for the title but suddenly Collins retired. Eubank filled the place as a late substitute and had to come down once again to 168, something that he said was killing him years before.
Calzaghe was impressive but no one at the time figured Eubank to still be a top 168 pounder. He took the payday and the risk against an unproven Calzaghe but this wasn't the Eubank of 2 or 3'years previously.

 

Calzaghe's best win is probably Kessler, all things considered.

 

Donald Curry ( because he was pfp number 1 in 1985 ) also looked great many times
Tim Witherspoon ( beat a prime Bruno in England )

 

A lot of fighters here are HOF but not ATGs

 

Calzaghe is a HOF, not an ATG.Stayed too long in protected UK

 

Calzaghe's hands severely limited his potential.

Towards the end of his career, Calzaghe could not close his fist voluntarily.

Somebody had to push the fingers into place, and then tape the fist shut.

He should probably have retired a lot earlier than he did.

Despite this limitation, he was the Ring Magazine champion at both 168 and 175 simultaneously, and the standout fighter within this weight range.

There was more than a whiff of greatness to him.

 

Anyone who has ever seen the way Ben Johnson exploded out of the blocks, hitting full speed about 10 metres before anyone else, who takes seriously his claim that PEDs did nothing for his athletic ability is touchingly naive and I have a bridge to sell them. The "naturally quick" Ben Johnson ran 10.22 in the 100m final in Los Angeles in 1984. He ran nearly half a second faster in Seoul four years later.

 

What Johnson was saying is that if his recovery was better while training for the 1984 olympics then he would run faster if the other athletes used the same drug, I`m not sure how you could prove something like that but Steroids aren`t a magic wand if I took steroids and started training I wouldn`t beat Ben Johnson while he was on drugs, some people have the perfect physique for running and some for boxing etc. and PEDS can help but it`s complicated specifically with boxing where there are so many intangibles to consider other than building up muscle and running down a track.

 

I am not sure that I entirely agree.

He has had constant hand problems on the one hand (see my previous post), and at the same time other contenders have seen him as high risk/low reward.