Joe did well to move up and just about beat a 43 year old, although arguably a loss too so perhaps not. Scrappy fight, with Joe lowblowing Hopkins to survive his early knockdown and probably knockout loss, and hopkins fouling and tricking after his gas tank stopped him outpointing joe. Joe was very wise to wait till hopkins was losing fights and had lost some of his tank, since he now had a much better gas tank than the 43 year old so could scrape back the win late on from the edge of defeat. Had he fought hopkins when he was prime, the fight would have continued with hopkins outboxing joe and joe unable to capitalise on hopkins gassing. old Hopkins, though unable to beat the true LHW champions like Dawson and Kovalev, still had enough to beat the fringe champs so its a good win for joe regardless.
yes for the first six rounds, and would have stopped joe in 2 if joe hadnt lowblowed. BUT you have to go with the full fight, my friend. Joe rallied as soon as hopkins started gassing due to being 43.
its makes me sad that people try to take away arguably joes best-of-his-entire-career win against this 43 year old man. be nicer, guys.
That’s exactly what I did, the full fight. The commentators and the crowd were cheering every flurry Calzaghe threw, Hopkins looked uncomfortable with the pace, faked the pain of a low blow to regain some energy. Despite all that I was watching the boxing, looking for effective work. Hopkins still got the better of Calzaghe. People need to ignore the flow and the energy of the fighters to observe what is objectively taking place. Part of the reason why Calzaghe was so successful was because of his positive body language and energy in every situation. That sways people, as does activity - effective or not. Watch the fight again, I watched it today.
Joe lost the fight against Hopkins, plain and simple. I’m a Calzaghe fan, his best wins were Kessler, Lacy, Jones, Eubank and Reid. Hopkins made him look like an amateur.
Explain exactly how an isolated incident can impact the scoring of 12 individual rounds? Did the judges get in a time machine and re-score the previous nine rounds? It was a close scrappy fight. Horrid watch, in fact. Not a bout many would choose to endure twice in full, including you. I seriously doubt you have sat through the full 36 minutes again. Not buying it. But there was nothing controversial about the scoring. Nothing.
Please, debate anything I’ve said then. Nobody has yet pointed me to a round we can analyse. I watched the fight today, do you want to watch and contribute to the thread? If not then why are you here? Go away or it’s obvious that you’re the troll, I’m trying to talk boxing. A match between two of my favourites from the 00’s.
Obviously that wasn’t the only incident that swayed the judges, and I’ve mentioned the other factors that you conveniently ignored. What that low blow does influence is the judges perception for the next few rounds, and in a close fight that alone can make all the difference. The low blow is the main reason why nobody gave a **** that Hopkins lost the decision. I was glad that he lost at the time because of it. I watched the whole fight today, plus Calzaghe vs Mitchell, plus Hopkins vs Pavlik (that was a Masterclass). If you can’t watch the fight a second time then why come here and talk about it? Why pretend that your opinion is valid if you won’t watch it a second time? Go away troll.
I'm a huge, huge, Hopkins fan, I have Hopkins posters all over the house Hopkins fights on repeat on the wide screen telly, and I'm even trying to get some of his ball hairs so that I can have them immortalized in amber and set in a necklace that I'll wear to bed ... but damn, Calzaghe clowned him that night.
And yet they'll click on a thread, waste their time and everybody else's time to give an opinion about a fight they don't care about, while pretending that their memory from ten years ago is reliable? As I said, you're a troll. A boring one at that.
