Is Joe Calzaghe a legend or fraud?

There have been some decent points made (mainly mine of course) but there is a lot of truth to this one. HBO create and add a lot of people's careers in terms of fights that they force- I'd like to have seen what JC would have done in those 10 years if HBO were bossing him around.

 

Depends on who's doing the ranking IMO. I seem to remember BM was pretty consistent in having JC #1, whilst Ring and the rest of its group switched them several times. As regards feasting on left overs, they were both as bad as each other for this, JC fought Brewer, Mitchell and Pudwill after Ottke, who fought Reid, Starie and Thornberry after him. The only thing you can do is judge that Calz fought most of the best fighters on Ottke's resume (Reid, Brewer, Mitchell), generally did a better job on them and fought 3/4 fighters in Eubank, Lacy, Kessler and Hopkins who were better than anyone on Oottke's resume.

 

Bloody good fighter regardless of weather he was an atg.
Infact, I think were missing the point with all this pigeon holeing of boxers. All this B level atg hof shite is just so......geeky.

 

You have to look at the manner in which both Calzaghe and Ottke won their fights though.

 

Maybe not, I was referring back to the initial question. However, Eubank was only 31 and had enough left to push the CAT to the limit in a cruiserweight title shot not too much later.

As regards Mitchell and Brewer, I honestly don't think it's too relevant who fought them first. Fighters do not become shot as a result of being pitty patted around the ring by Ottke for 12 rounds. Belts pretty well irrelevant in my eyes, though JC did become undisputed champ which Ottke never managed. As a bottom line I look at how the fighters won the bouts in question and for Calzaghe they were most all in convincing style, Ottke benefitted from several questionable decisions.