How would Calzaghe do in this SMW era?

There isn't much between Froch and Kessler at their best. (And I thought the outcome of both fights was accurate.) But Calzaghe was better than both.

I try to resist short changing the guy when addressing the overstatements by his adoring fans.

Regardless of one's opinion of his resume, the guy was a difficult puzzle to solve in the ring.

 

As Calzaghe said, Calzaghe v Ward would be a chess match. However, Calzaghe moves his pieces a lot more often than Ward. Calzaghe's punch volume could be the determining factor, much like it was against Hopkins. Of course, this is if we're talking prime Calzaghe vs Ward. Great tactical, strategic boxing match, regardless. Ward is the real deal and then some, no matter what the haters want to think.

 

Prime Calzaghe would only be troubled by Ward IMO.

 

A young Calzaghe today would be the WBO Champion and you know it. The WBO is still a peripheral belt in the division, and the bigger names all go for the WBC, WBA and IBF. The WBO hasn't had a strong champion since Calzaghe relinquished it and has been traded back and forth recently by Abraham and Steiglitz.

And the WBO Super Middleweight was a "real title" in the 1990's. It was as old as the WBC belt, a year younger than the WBA and had the best liniage of champions having come from Hearns through Eubank and Collins to Calzaghe's hands, where all the other three belt had been held by lesser fighters like Van Horn and Galvano and Tiozzo and Ottke.

The worth of a belt is measure by two things, the importance of the organization it represents and the champions that have held it. The IBF was, in these term, clearly the divisions number 1 belt in the 1990's, the WBA and WBC had legitimacy because of the importance of their organizations but lacked legitimacy due to weakness of the champions that had held their belt (the WBA had three stand out champions out of the nine people who held the belt prior to 2000 - Park, Nunn and Liles - while the WBC had two out of eight - Leonard and Benn), and the WBO title drew its legitimacy from the strength of its champions but was rated behind the other three because the organzation was not recognized alongside the rest.

 

Calzaghe would beat SOB Ward!

 

I am comparing LIKE 4 LIKE, and you are not. WBO was then not what it was today.
Are you comparing LIKE 4 LIKE? You aren't, so no not ' and you know it' at all even in the slightest. I only know that I HAVE compared like for like levels and YOU HAVENT.

I'm being EXACT and SPECIFIC in comparison levels, and you aren't.

 

well he would not have travelled so he would not have entered the super six so we would never know

 

well lets see I've given you Forchs win at home and a controversial loss away. Thats two sides of the coin evidence.

Where is the evidence to suggest that Calzage would beat Kessler in Copenhagen? there isn't comparable evidence, like I say, you gotta go with the evidence first, not second guessing.

 

He would easily dominate.
This era seems weak and even now Ward the new champs best win is a past best, unwell, rusty Kessler that Calzaghe beat when prime who all these years later is still something like the #2 SMW and Bika who Calzaghe beat when prime, is now past best and a world champ in this era, so I think its obvious Calzaghe would dominate, like Hopkins would if he was a prime MW in this era

 

I am comparing like for like.

The WBO Super Middleweight Title in 1990's was no a less a legitimate title than the WBC or WBA. They'd all been around the same amont of time in their rather recently recognized weight division. The only reason the WBO was not rated as highly as them was because of the WBO organization not being recongized alongside the other three.

The WBO Super Middleweight Title in the 1990's had the best champions liniage of any of the division's titles and was not being constested by fighter of lesser quality to those of the WBC or WBA. Only the IBF Title could claim to be superior to the WBO in that regard but even that had some suspect champions in its history.

Your entire argument about "a young Calzaghe in todays era holding the IBO title" rests solely on the idea the WBO title of the 1990's was worth less than the other three, and it was not. It was in almost the exactly the same then position as it is now - same age as WBC, a year younger than the WBA and rated behind those two because the WBO hasn't been recognized as legitimate as long as those two, and the bigger names showing little-to-no interest in holding it - the only difference between now and the 1990s is that the WBO organization itself has more legitimacy but it's Super Middleweight champions are much weaker.

 

Seems an odd thing to say. Did the SMW winner travel? He entered the competition.
Calzaghe fought over half of his world title fights in a different country to the one he was living in

 

Good post similar to an old post of mine below where parts have changed since then but you get the point

Where you have written for the WBO vs limited competition.
I just wanted to highlight some details to you.
The SMW divisions first world champs were WBC 1988, WBA 1987, IBF 1984 & WBO 1988.
Now for a start it is a new division so no belt has any more prestige than the other as they were all started at a similar time. So the WBO SMW title has no less prestige than the others.
Consider also that the WBO at SMW has been involved in 4 unification bouts.
The IBF has been involved in 2
The WBA in 3
WBC in 4 also
This shows that the WBO has been as willing to make top fights at SMW as much as any other governing body.

Now look at the list of champs in each and who they defended against and you can see that the WBO SMW title has produced the best defences overall better than all of the other govening bodies in this particular weight division so far.
Consider how much critism Bute gets now for his IBF defences.
Consider M Beyer defending his WBC title against 26-14-5 fighter who was coming off of a win against a 0-2-0 fighter
Or that Mundine when defending the WBA title against a 24-13-5 fighter who was the same fighter that WBC champ Beyer was defending against above.

People bring up Eubank who helped mould the belt that was good enough to give T Hearns a slice of history making. Out of Eubanks 18 WBO SMW title fights 14 of those fights were against fighters who were, had been or became top 10 SMWs. One was a unification and another was against the undefeated former IBF SMW champ (relinquished his title). In fact 6 of the fighters he faced had been or became world champs

 

joe left british soil what four times in 46 fights :-verysad the last two he had to in order to get his retirement fund , so that makes two trips over seas in 10 years at smw that terrible imo

 

There wasn't anything in that fight that would make me think that Kessler would have fared better at home. Maybe the scores would have been a bit tighter, maybe not. Watching the fight though, Calzaghe simply won. I don't think a change of venue would have changed that, aside from it involving a robbery. Rumors of Kessler having injured his hand, notwithstanding. That was never clarified enough to my liking.

Are you saying that in splitting 2 fights, each winning at home, by similar margins, that Froch-Kessler aren't evenly matched or thereabouts?