In Andre Ward the new Joe Calzaghe?

atsch You are comparing a fighter who had 22 successful SMW title fights facing many top 10 rated SMWs to a fighter who has only had 4 world title fights hasnt fought anyone who hasnt already been exposed and beaten, whos 2 biggest wins are Calzaghe leftovers.
Tell me what stoppages were bogus on home turf? Manfredo maybe who didnt throw a punch?
Ward is a hometown fighter, Calzaghe wasnt. Ward has used illegal headbutts which Calzaghe never needed to use to win.

 

Son of Goat never 'll be a Calzaghe, you wish!!

 

By the time Ward's career is done, he'll be rated far higher then Calzaghe is now. Hell if Froch gets lucky and beats Ward, he is greater then Slappy Joe.

 

It's an insult to Ward's ability to compare him to Calzaghe. They have nothing in common aside from being smw's

 

Considering Andre is about to surpass Joe Calzaghe in greatness should he beat Carl Froch, No.

 

beating froch, a guy who lost to calzaghe leftovers makes him greater? when he defended the title 20 odd times, won a belt at two weights then maybe we can talk

 

My grandma could have defended the belt 20 times against Cokezaghe's competition.

 

Calzaghe is the greatest SMW of all time, granted there are holes in his resume but he fought who he had too and never lost.

46-0 is not easy no matter who you face, most of the ATG's have had off nights and lost to people that they shouldn't of, or slowed down with age and fought longer than they should have, Calzaghe did not.

He'll never get the recognition that he deserves, partly because he never beat a huge name in their prime (Kessler is a very good fighter, who didn't have huge name value, mostly due to where he's from, if he was American they'd love him.) and partly because people look at his style later in his career where he was throwing soft fast punches.

One last point, people think the SMW division has only come alive since Joe left it, he was champ for 10 years, it's bull**** to assume that only now he's gone, there's a decent standard there, he dominated the divsion, making it LOOK weak.

Roy Jones was critisized at LHW for not fighting a worthy challenger, Jones gets old and beaten, then BOOM LHW becomes alive with talent... Tarver, Johnson, Dawson, even Calzaghe.

Hopkins gets 20 defences at MW, apparently it's a weak era, Hopkins moves up then BOOM there's Taylor, Pavlik, Abraham, Martinez...

 

Consistency is underrated..
Calzaghe had 20+ title defense, many of them being top 10 ranked opponents, beat multiple belt holder in Kessler, claimed the light heavyweight crown.. And was at a time nr 3 P4P..
Calzaghe had a much more dominant career than Ward has had so far..
But, Ward is yet to turn 28, he has plenty of time to surpass Joe.

 

I think this is a very good point :think..
Maybe the same thing will happen when the Klits retire?

 

You think Mitchel, Sheika and Brewer were as good as Dirrell and Ward. Olympic medalists? :rofl

Its a horrible point. Cokehead fought in a weak era in an historically weak division.

 

No, Andre Ward is in his 20s and fighting the best SMW out there. Calzaghe was a protected ***** fighting bums for a decade before calling out some 40y old legends

 

I do actually, a metaphor for it, is that if you show a horse race were one horse (or in the HW divisions case) two, are so much faster than the competition then you don't have a very exciting race.

You can however have an exciting race with 6 or 7 horses who are slower, yet all run at around the same speed.

 

If you compare anybody to calzaghe, its Lucien Bute..... both southpaws with fast attacking bursts... in and out with medium power less than accurate shots. both live on the outside until they choose....both world champions carrying question marks on their ability....both under-rated. My opinion is that Bute would beat Ward at this stage in his career and within the next two years. After that, its Ward. Disclaimer: I'm not a Ward fan!!!