This but the opposite. Canelo cleaned the division out in 1 year. Only guy he needs to beat is Benavidez and then he's clearly ahead of Calzaghe at SMW
Who has he beaten to be rated so highly? He looks good on the eye test, but he hasn’t proven it yet. That’s the point. Again, look at what happened with Lucien Bute. We don’t know how good Benavidas is yet.
That's because there was no division to clean out ... it's a Wasteland none of them have done anything ... there's a reason he went for the kill at 168 it's because the corpse was already dead lmao..
Calzaghes opponents have wins over the likes of Froch, Liles, Graham , Johnson, Malinga, Otke*, Woods, Benn, Nardiello, Brahmer, Reid etc between them.. & yes some of those opponents were past their best but still pisses all over the likes of Shefat isufu , John Ryder* & Caleb Truax
You are having a round of circular logic here. Let me lay it out for you in plain and simple terms:- Kesslerr, Eubank Sr, Brewer, Bika, Lacy & Reid are all better wins @168 than Benavidez as he currently stands, because regardless of the eye test Benavidez hasn't beaten anyone of note at 168 to be trumping Kessler or Eubank Sr! Dirrel on cuts, and a post-prime career-160lber in Lemmy isn't cutting it. Sure, Benavidez is being touted as the biggest test for Canelo @168, but it's purely on the eye-test, as Loudon stated above, Benavidez might be like Bute and look awesome crushing B-level opposition, but he might not look so awesome when he comes up against A-level opposition - and that's even if he manages to make weight, and doesn't move up to 175 like Zurdo did. To be fair to Benavidez, 168 is a ghostland, and aside from Canelo it doesn't really have anyone A-level talents. But that's boxing - Calzaghe in some ways suffered for that same issue / criticism in that he was content to stay at 168 for a long time on B/C level opposition when he could have moved up looking for A-level names. He was maybe lucky in some ways that he hung around and got prime Kessler before moving up, as he wasted all the momentum that the Lacy drubbing game him in 2006.
I'm one of Benavidez's biggest fans on here, and obviously one of Joe's too. He's a sadistic black-eyed demon from hell in between those ropes but his resume is extremely poor, even more so given his super high talent level. Not his fault because the chickens keep cluckin' and duckin' and they don't want no smoke with him.
I like Benavidez a lot, for modern day. He's not a better win than Kessler (Calzaghe, Ward and Froch all have this), and definitely isn't a better win than Froch (Ward). Also, he wouldn't be a more celebrated win than Calzaghe's win over Jeff Lacy or Froch's win over Bute. Again, a scalp like Benavidez is very, very good for this era, I don't think it's an all time kingmaker. Also, I have my doubts he'd beat Benavidez (again I like Benavidez a lot)
