Hopkins vs Calzaghe (Observations on second viewing)

I've only watched the fight once and have no intention of doing so again but at the time I thought Hopkins might have just nicked it, although by the time the final bell rang I had stopped caring. Prime Hopkins outboxes Joe though and wins pretty comfortably, that much is obvious for me. What is also obvious is that a lot of people who comment on this fight have not followed Hopkins career because if they had there is no way they would think the 43-year-old that Calzgahe squeaked past was anywhere near the same fighter he was from between 1996-2002.

I remeber the Joppy fight, Hopkins was clearly on the slide at that point, his power, punch out-put, general workrate and stamina were not the same and by the time he fought Eastman he looked every bit like the 40-year-old he was, so it wasn't really that much of a shock to me when Taylor beat him. Moving up in weight helped to rejuvenate him somewhat but please don't kid yourselves that Calzaghe beat an anywhere near prime Hopkins.

 

Prime Hopkins beats Calzaghe? please state what years you think Hopkins was in his prime. The hopkins that fought jones first time wouldnt stand a chance against Calzaghes workrate and wasnt as clever. Even that fight was bore fest!
Calzaghe was nowhere near his prime when he fought Hopkins, yet hopkins went on to beat Pavlik and Pascal.

To me Calzaghes workrate and stamina will be the key no matter when they had fought. As for Jones Jr earlier in his career if he fought calzaghe its a tougher one to call.

 

The fight left little doubt Joe would of lost to prime B-Hop. It was as good as a draw without the knockdown.

 

In fairness, I think the Trinidad-version of Hopkins is the best mix of athletic ability and ring smarts that we witnessed. That version of Hopkins would likely have been more active against Joe, but in doing so would have gotten hit more.

A lot of his success against the Zagster came from being negative and shutting down what Joe was doing.

It's easy to assume that Hopkins was causing problems and would have done more of that in a younger version, but it's not that simple, IMO. Joe always had the three combined attributes that Hopkins loses against: speed, movement and high workrate.

 

Joe wasn't in his prime either. Pretty faulty logic.

 

Yeah he was. He was killing himself making weight at SMW. He felt stronger and more comfortable at LHW. His punch output was at a record high.

 

Wrong again about the punch output.
You should really just stop posting.

Calzaghe beat Hopkins sandwiched between Hopkins best wins of Tarver, Wright and Pavlik

 

That is just a crazy thing to say. Other than the weight, which I'll concede, he clearly wasn't the same guy from even three years back. The head movement and punch anticipation were much dulled (you could see that during the Kessler fight).

He was also 37* with a lot of miles on the clock. To say he was "prime" is purely agenda driven or, worse, ignorant.

*I got the age wrong, he was 36.

 

Im not wrong about punch output. Bring up the punch stats.

He was 36 and in his prime.

 

"Hi, I'm Dinovelvet, please meet my agenda. You might have missed it on the way in."

 

Im not a fan of Joe. Doesn't take a genius to figure it out. If im lying about punch stats , prove me wrong.

 

You're saying against Bernard and Roy, Joe threw a record high number of punches?

 

1000 against Roy.

 

So let's ignore the extensive injuries and the fact he couldn't punch with any power, the only statistic that counts is the one that suits dino's agenda

Also, he threw over 1000 against Kessler