Calzaghe beat Hopkins, he beat Kessler. Both at their best. He floored Eubank in 15 seconds, 49 previous opponents failed to floor him once with a clean head shot. Froch lost clearly to Kessler, Dirrell and Ward and was way behind against Taylor and Groves. Good fighter though with a long jab, strong chin, very good fitness and awkward style.
Agree that Hopkins was not at his prime... But he did just jump two divisions and dethrone tarver and beat winky.... So he hadn't made it into his best grandad slippers just yet... Close fight.. Great win... ****in awful fight lol
Great win, but makes you wonder what he was doing all that time if your last-but-one fight is against a 40 something, past prime fighter.
Won't hide my bias here.. I love calzaghe.. Think he had a really effective unique style and his stamina was insane.. When I first got into boxing I really enjoyed watching him...but that is the most frustrating thing about him... The talent was always there but maybe not always the belief.. There are some good names on his record but too many no hopes as well... A fight with a prime Jones, James toney,bit younger Hopkins.. Sure I'm missing a few of the elites around his weight during his reign... But at the same time I'd buy into him being a little avoided... He wasn't a big name at all.... Nobody at all would want to fight a southpaw who can chuck over 1000 punches a fight and can change his rhythm and strategy as and when he needed to... He would definitely be part of the sho needs him club... And no one on there right mind wouldve gone to Germany to unify with ottke
The biggest disappointment for me was the two-fight, twenty-month gap between Calzaghe beating Lacy and fighting Kessler. He'd spent the best part of a decade in the shadows telling anyone who'd listen that he was great and was being avoided. Finally he gets the win his career desperately needed. And what does he do? Sakio Bika - a guy nobody had ever heard of, coming off a technical draw, who had fought once outside Australia and Asia, who had spent nearly all his career at middleweight, who had beaten absolutely nobody. And Peter Manfredo, who was garbage. Surely at that point he must have thought he needed to get a move, but he just kept on fighting pointless opponents that did nothing for his career. I've said before that Calzaghe beats Froch in my opinion seven or eight out of ten times. But for a guy who was a world champion for over a decade and had eleven more fights his level of opposition is really poor by comparison.
Agreed. It’s terrible. Joe had no desire for legacy or money, imho. He always struck me as a simpleton, so maybe he was just happy boxing for a few quid at home?
Joe sat his prime out fighting b level opposition Bernard went through weight classes schooling young upstarts along the way You think froch Hopkins don t happen if Bernard was Joe Hell no
The annoying thing is is that people forget tha Hopkins had some of his career best wins after the Calzaghe fight. That makes the win credible regardless of what you think of the rest of Joe's career. When they boxed, Hopkins was #4 ring magazine p4p and Joe was #3. Hopkins would still be in the top 5 when Joe retired too, and Hopkins only missed 1 year in the 2000s of being in that list, twice being number 1. Hopkins would stay in the top 3 of the ring LHW rankings until 2016, some 8 years after the Calzaghe bout.
Hopkins started later, that's what allowed him to go on so long imo Calzaghes hands were finished though obviously, it changed his style