Please and who has Joe beat? Bhop in a disputed.....thats it? the same BHOP beat twice by the Taylor the one Kelly beat Twice.
Taylor was ovverrated. Big deal Taylor beat BHOP in a close decision and a very boring fight. That makes you an ATG? No. Calzaghe has fought more world class fighters than Taylor and Pavlik combined. Look at how many ex and current world champions JC has beaten then tell me Pavlik has acheived more!
Your just being ignorant. JC has a decent record and BHOP is not in another league to every one else. He got dominated by RJJ and put down two times by Mercado.
JC is also shot. Let two shot fighters give us an exhibition fight and then call it day for both of them.
I don't see Arum offering as much for Joe without them. It will be a harder sell to the general public for him. Joe loses bargaining position without them. If the fight doesn't happen now, I really don't see it happening at all. The interest in this fight will pretty much be gone from a general marketing stand point unless something unforseen happens. I've posted this before. I live in Pavlik's home town. If it weren't for Kelly there would be ZERO boxing news in the local paper or news casts. I just found out at Christmas that Jack Lowe and my brother used to be friends. My brother was home and saw him on the local news cast. THAT is the state of boxing right now. My brother didn't even know about Pavlik, let alone his bud Jack. I believe these belts matter in the marketing to J.Q. Public.
If the public is as ill informed as you say, then it would be even easier to sell the three Ring Belts between the two of them, Pavliks number one at MW and Calzaghes number one at SMW and LHW status. Is your J.Q.Public guy going to be listening to that lot saying "i'm not watching that. If the IBF belt was up for grabs I'd definately be interested though..."
...And Calzaghe has been around for how many years?? And beaten how many world class fighters (this would include Byron Mitchell)??
Remember the good old days when champions would fight the current rising stars, now a days people just pretend they're over rated and not worthy of their time. I guess this is why boxing is such a mess right now.:-(
I would prefer to have wins over Eubank, Hopkins, Kessler, Lacy, and Reid rather than wins over Miranda, Taylor, and Gary Lockett. I'm not hating on Pavlik's resume, I just feel it isn't quite as accomplished as many of you here believe it to be. Jermain Taylor held two "controversial" wins over Bernard, but he also scraped out W's against guys like Spinks and Ouma, who he should have really had his way with. Taylor hadn't been impressive for a long time before Pavlik got to him, but I'm not going to lie, I picked Taylor by KO prior to the bell. Props to Pavlik. I would much rather see Joe Calzaghe fight Kelly Pavlik than Roy Jones, but it's his career and he doesn't owe any of us ****. It's not like he's been calling himself a greater fighter than Sugar Ray Robinson like Floyd did for so long without having cleared out his division. Joe Calzaghe is not afraid of Kelly Pavlik or anybody in or around his weight division, so I hope people stop saying he is. It's becoming boring to hear.
"I would prefer to have wins over Eubank, Hopkins, Kessler, Lacy, and Reid rather than wins over Miranda, Taylor, and Gary Lockett." Hopkins is the only big name on there and how was Lacy and Kessler any different then Miranda and Taylor at that time? Lacy/Kessler are two guys who never had any big fight before their fights with Calzaghe. Also Pavlik won twice against a guy who beat Hopkins twice. It kills me how Ignorant you Calzaghe fans are, each one of you guys are getting owned on here.
I'm not a Joe Calzaghe fan. I believe Mikkel Kessler to be a better fighter than Edison Miranda. I don't know how the rest of the forum feel. I also believe Jermain Taylor wins to be slightly hindered by how awful he looked in his 2 fights prior to the Pavlik fight. But I still give credit. Dont' call me ignorant.