Q: There's been an odd debate on the internet about Bernard Hopkins vs. Joe Calzaghe, and their respective legacies. There's been this school of thought that Hopkin's achievements serve to enhance Calzaghe's standing in boxing, and each win makes Calzaghe greater and greater. A: I'm not sure I understand. Q: Basically what they're saying is that no matter how great Hopkins is, and no matter how much he accomplishes, Calzaghe will always be greater because he won against Hopkins A: I'm still not sure I understand. So there are people who are saying that it's possible to piggyback on somebody's legacy? Q: Seems that way, yeah. What are your thoughts on that? A: Are you sure you're interpreting their views correctly? It doesn't make a lot of sense. Are these analysts saying this? Q: I think it's mainly fans around the internet. Mainly British A: I suspect it may be more of a nationalistic thing. The US and England have always been rivals. I'm not sure it's a viewpoint to be taken seriously. Greatness can have a lot of different definitions, but the biggest component there is what you've accomplished. There's no doubt Calzaghe is a great fighter, and in my view he's underrated in this country. But you can't beat someone, then sit back and take a cut of that person's legacy for every other fight they fight. It doesn't work that way. If Calzaghe is to get credit for beating Kelly Pavlik, Jean Pascal, and Antonio Tarver, he has to beat Pavlik, Pascal, and Tarver. Q: But what the people in Calzaghe's camp are saying is that Calzaghe's win over Hopkins was dismissed because Hopkins was perceived as being "old", but he since proved he has a lot more left than we thought. A: Well that's true. That's very true. I'm not one to parse victories by saying stuff like, 'it was a split decision' or 'it was a robbery' or 'hometown cooking' or anything like that. A win is a win. I think Calzaghe beat Hopkins fair and square in a close fight. They proved that at that point in their respective careers, they were peers. Q: If that's the case, is it legit to suggest that Calzaghe's legacy would be enhanced by Hopkin's continued achievements? A: OK, I see where this is going now. I think all that should come of it is that the public should give Calzaghe full credit for beating a Hopkins who was far from shot or finished, and it should look like a really good win on Calzaghe's resume, the best win of his career. But that has nothing at all to do with some perception of a continued enhancement. A fighter can't drag another fighter into all-time great status with him. A fighter has to earn his way there. To say that Calzaghe somehow gets a seat on the Hopkins' Express and is entitled to some kind of residual props with each successive Hopkins victory is an overcorrection in my view. Q: So no enhancing legacy? A: No. I think in measuring greatness you have to examine their entire careers, not just a single fight. Hopkins lost five times. I don't think there are four people being slowly lifted up the historical record because of it. Styles make fights. Hopkins has done a great job and tactically hiding his flaws and advancing age. But just because he does a great job at hiding it doesn't mean they're not there. They're there. They've been there for at least the past decade. One of those flaws is limited stamina. He excels when he gets to fight at his pace, and his opponents haven't been able to take advantage of that. Calzaghe is a stamina fighter. He overwhelms just on sheer volume. Hopkins was definitely not 'shot' against Calzaghe, but you could see him wearing Hopkins out just with activity level. It's unlikely he could have done that had they fought 10-15 years prior when Hopkins was at peak stamina. Maybe so. Maybe not. A lot of those rounds were decided by a few punches that Hopkins just didn't have the gas to throw at that age. But either way, the effectiveness of a head-to-head matchup is limited in determining greatness. You have to look at the broader body of work. Calzaghe, like Mayweather, had the path laid out for him to achieve that but left just when real legacy-defining opportunities arrived in his division. Can you imagine if Calzaghe had stuck around long enough to participate in and win the Super Six, or even just fought the winner? But he didn't. And it's far from a given that he could have won that, or even beaten the opponents Hopkins beat since their fight. Maybe he could have, but you don't get credit for hypotheticals, and you certainly don't get credit for another fighter's work. Because of that, Hopkins will have the greater legacy and the higher standing, regardless of how they stacked up against each other when they fought. Q: That's a great breakdown. A: But I want to emphasize that if this is a nationalistic thing, that both sides are skewing Calzaghe. He deserves a lot more credit than he's getting in the states, and I suspect that what you're seeing on the internet is just British frustration boiling over, and not a genuinely heartfelt belief. Give the man some credit, people!
