If it wasn't for the flash KD, people would talk about how easily Calzaghe beat Hopkins

He did beat Hopkins easily. He completely embarrassed Hopkins.

 

joe calzaghe is the greatest 168 fighter of all time period

 

I don't know, calzaghe had the work rate, Bhop had the effective work.
Serious question, Is an open hand slap a scoring shot?

 

Lost all respect for Hopkins in that fight. He fought like a *****. All the holding, clinching, wrestling, grabbing and faking low blows ruined the fight. Notice he didn't even try that **** with Kovalev and he lost every second of every round and was knocked down by the first right hand Kovalev landed.

 

asked Jeff Lacy that question, he was almost slapped to death

 

Joe Calzaghe beat a Hopkins that pulled absolutely every trick (cheat) in the book. Faking low blows, holding, going in head first clearly looking for a headbutt, etc.

 

It's pretty unanimous the best Hopkins couldn't beat the worst Calzaghe.

Great thread though as reminds people just how great Calzaghe was.

 

Everyone has a chuckle about calzaghe slapping but the reason he did it was hands were f***ed. Imagine if this was not the case, he would have been practically unbeatable. Earlier in his career before his hand issues he used to punch pretty hard and clean.

 

Agreed. And with a better ref he might even have got Hopkins to quit.

 

In fact, if anything, Kessler did better against Calzaghe than Hopkins did.

 

I thought the fight was closer than some on this thread are claiming

 

Thing is, even with the flash kd, Calzaghe still beaten Nard easily

 

That Hopkins would beat Ward, we really lose perspective of just how great Joe was, even though he had brittle hands. This was a semi-shot broken handed blown up Joe too, crazy how good he was.

 

I thought his hands became damaged because of his slaps? I'm not very familiar with the man. Anyone mind giving me a history lesson? I know of him and saw the Jeff Lacy fight already, but I wasn't following boxing that much when Calzaghe was active.