Hopkins always said he takes away his opponents' best weapon. What is Calzaghe's?

From the 2004 documentary "Joe Calzaghe - No Average Joe:

JC: I've had fights against Roy Jones that have fallen through. No fault of my own.
FW: Roy Jones never ever wanted to fight Joe calzaghe, he always priced himself out of it.
JC: Bernard Hopkins 3 or 4 years ago signed to fight me.
FW: The following day Bernard Hopkins asked for double the amount of money we'd agreed. He's (Joe) not ducked anybody, I've tried to make the fights for him.

 

Joe has always stated very clearly that he's willing to go to America to fight Hopkins. This can be seen in post-fight interviews going back many, many years.

 

I didn't read it, it was a documentary.

 

Laugh all you want. It's all good man, but unless you can prove otherwise I'll take Warren and Joe's word for it.

 

Calzaghe does seem to be a pitter patter puncher! :yep

But, then again I haven't seen many of his fights!

 

His work rate is his best weapon IMO.

Calzaghe has sub par power for a light heavy IMO.

Tbh, i think Jones (considering he brought his A game) could give JC a tougher challenge than B-Hop

 

Sure I would. As much as I dislike Frank Warren, I'd take those words over a guy on a forum named klion22 any day of the week. Yes. Are you surprised?

 

With all due respect to you and your opinions, how would you know what Calzaghe is like at LHW without seeing him fight at that weight? It is yet to be seen. At SMW he has a KO record over 70%. This is with starving himself to make 168, and with that comes less power. At LHW, Calzaghe will have more power. Please elaborate.

PS: Isn't the Hops-Calzaghe fight at 170 anyway?

 

Calzaghe has a 70%+ KO record. How can you figure he doesn't hit hard?


Here's a post I made a while back. I'm on a different account now. This might answer some of the questions about Calzaghe's punch power, hopefully:

 

Lacy is one tough mother****er. There were times in that fight when lacy looked out on his feet anyway, and I am very surprised his corner didn't pull him out. To make him suffer a beating like that isn't right. One thing you can't take away from Lacy is he's not easy to put down. The guy is a warrior.

 

Rather get into the back and forth about whos better...or whos worse, I will just answer the original post.

Joe's advantages in this fight are physical...not stylistic (do people even KNOW the difference??)...and those being the obvious like speed and output. These are the two weapons that pose the biggest problems for Bernard...now instead of answering how Hopkins will take those away, I will instead show you.

Lets take a trip back about a month to the fight between Paul Williams and Carlos Quintana.

Williams was the faster fighter by a HUGE margin. Williams was also the busier fighter by a HUGE margin. Because of these factors (and these factors ONLY) most felt Williams would just simply "outwork" him.

Lets stop for a second and take a look at those last few sentances.....sounds alot like most of the posts people picking Calzaghe are making if you substitute the names.

Now, what most people failed to see was, Quintana has great timing, solid defense, is a great counter puncher, is VERY accurate and has very good footwork.

He used his superior movement (not many in the sport are better than Bernard at this....remember, Im talking footwork, not footspeed) to never really allow Williams to set to throw in flurries or for any power for that matter.

Leading into that, everytime Williams DID get set to throw, Quintana was able to time him perfectly and land FLUSH with a lead right or counter right (while he WASNT set). This was a bi-product of not only Quintana's timing being MUCH more important than Williams speed, but also Williams below average defense (something he shares with Joe).

And because of Quintana's constant movement keeping Williams off balance (unable to set) he was able to not only cut his workrate pretty much in half, but he was also able to time when Paul would actually be ready to throw and would either block/parry or tie him up.

Hopkins BTW holds a SIGNIFICANT advantage over Joe in the areas of defense, footwork/movement, timing and accuracy...even the most ardent supporters of Calzaghe will tell you this.

Dont be surprised if the final punch stats are very close...with Bernard landing the much cleaner and flusher shots.

(and before any of you fools point out that Joe is 100x the fighter Williams is....I KNOW AND I AGREE....but dont forget that Hopkins is 100x the fighter Quintana is as well....this post was about styles...not names)